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Ann Hasseltine Judson

ANN OF AVA

BY
ETHEL DANIELS HUBBARD

ILLUSTRATED BY

JESSIE GILLESPIE

NEW YORK

Missionary Education Movement of the

United States and Canada

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MIMIOMABT EDUCATION MOVEMENT Or Tm

ONITED STATES AND CANADA

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Ann Hasseltine Judson

Frontispiece

The Hasseltine Home .

Page 9

Harriet Newell . . . .

. '• 25

Adoniram Judson

. " 33

The Caravan

. ** 39

Rangoon River Front .

. '• 77

The Golden Pagoda

. " 81

A Burmese House

. '* 85

The Queen's Monastery

. " 117

A Burmese Christian Home .

. " 135

A Burmese Cart .

, " 199

The Hopia Tree .

. " 241

2135393 •

CONTENTS

CHAPTBB

PAoii

I

Nancy Hasseltine

1

II

The Shadow of Coming Events

13

in

Girl Pioneers ....

21

IV

A Long Good-by ....

35

V

Perplexities on Every Side

44

VI

The Isle of France .

61

VII

A Home at Last ....

70

VIII

" By the Old Rangoon Pagoda "

80

IX

Children's Voices

94

X

Ann's Dilemma ....

110

XI

" The East A-callin' " .

129

XII

The Golden City of Ava .

148

xin

The Heroine of Ava .

166

XIV

Prisoners in a Heathen Village

195

XV

The British Camp

. 217

XVI

The Hopia Tree ....

. 230

Ann of Ava

NANCY HASSELTINE

NANCY HASSELTINE came in
from her favorite walk by the river
and threw herself down in the big
chair by the front window. It was April,
and the air was intoxicatingly sweet with
sunlight and the fragrance of the damp
earth. Moreover, the river was riotously
blue and turbulent, true to its Indian
name, Merrimac, " the place of strong cur-
rents."

Nancy's cheeks flamed with color, her
brown eyes shone with the fire of spring, and
her curly hair was blown bewitchingly about
her face. There was not a prettier girl in
Bradford nor in all the valley of the Mer-
rimac than Ann, generally known as Nancy
Hasseltine, and none more popular.

There seemed to be no limit to her love
of good times and to her merry, laughing

[1]

Ann of Ava

mood. She could bribe the bell-ringer at the
academy with a smile. At home she was the
life of the household. This last winter had
been the gayest of all her sixteen years,
thanks to that same little unpainted academy
down the road, where more than eighty boys
and girls were gathered in school.

There were no high schools in Nancy's
day and no regular sessions of grammar or
primary school. A small, red schoolhouse
stood across the way from the meeting-house,
down near the frog pond and the alder
swamp. Sometimes the men of the town
would meet and vote to supply wood for the
school fire during one or two months. Then
school would keep, and the boys and girls
would have a brief chance at book-learning.

By and by, in the springtime of 1803, some
wise parents decided that something must
be done for the further education of their
children. Whereupon about thirty of the
" Inhabitants of the First Parish in Brad-
ford," — so the records read, — met together
and agreed to erect a building for an acad"
emyl They subscribed for shares in the
building fund until fifteen hundred dollars

Ann of Ava

was pledged. John Hasseltine, Nancy's
father, gave a hundred dollars.

Then these enterprising New England set-
tlers went to work and built the academy,
completing it in just three months from the
time of the meeting in March. Early in
June the first term opened, at the time of
j'^ear when schools nowadays are getting ready
to close.

More than fifty pupils hastened to the
new academy from Bradford and other
Massachusetts towns, from Vermont, New
Hampshire, and even from South Carolina,
many of them traveling the long distance by
stage-coach. Nancy Hasseltine and her three
sisters were among the first pupils.

On the outside the building looked like a
small district schoolhouse, such as we see to-
day in the heart of the country. Inside were
two classrooms, one on the right for the
boys, another on the left for the girls. A
narrow corridor separated them and pro-
jected somewhat in front. Above this pro--
jection a square tower rose to the height of
a second story, culminating in an arched
belfry in which hung the bell, Of course

[3]

Ann of Ava

there was no dormitory, large or small, to
house the pupils from far away, so they
boarded around at the various farms.

The Hasseltine house, a few rods west of
the academy on the " Boston Road," was the
favorite resort of the boys and girls. Mr.
Hasseltine was so heartily in sympathy with
the young people that when he built his house
he finished a hall at the rear of the second
story to be used for their parties and enter-
tainments.

After the new academy was opened,
Nancy's hours outside school were packed
full of merrymaking. This last winter there
had been parties galore. The little village of
Bradford, deviating from the prim traditions
of New England, was a center of social gaiety.

Think not that studies were seriously
neglected, because, from the beginning, Brad-
ford Academy stood for high standards, al-
though in those early daj^s the course of
study was not so complex and difficult as
it is thought to be in most schools to-day.
The pupils acquired their knowledge of Eng-
lish grammar by reading and parsing the
standard literature of the day, such as Pope's

w

Aftn of Ava

Essay on Man and Paradise Lost. They
made a fine art of penmanship, map draw-
ing, and elaborate embroidery. Then, too,
they studied English history, geography,
arithmetic, and other branches; and grad-
ually the range of studies enlarged.

Fortunately for Nancy, she was as clever
as she was beautiful, and lessons came as
easily as fun-making. Moreover, with all
her love of activity, she was devoted to read-
ing. Any time a good book could beguile
her into the cozy corner by the fireplace.
Many lively discussions over their favorite
authors were carried on among Nancy, her
three sisters, and their mother, who was the
greatest reader of them all. Yet in those
festively gay months after Nancy's sixteenth
birthday in December, studies and reading
were pushed to the wall by a consuming in-
terest in party dresses and party happenings.
During that winter she outdid all her friends
in frivolity, and none among them suspected
the growing unrest in her soul.

With the coming of spring, however, the
inner restlessness would no longer be hushed
by gaiety. As the girl came indoors on that

[5]

Ann of Ava

April afternoon, the pensive mood drew her
irresistibly within its control. Her eyes grew
big and dreamy with thought as she stretched
her lithe figure comfortably in the arm-chair
by the window, whence she looked out across
the green fields to the river with its dark blue
onrush of current.

Her three sisters, Abby and Mary and
Rebecca, had not yet come in from the
academy; and her father and mother were
busy out doors and in. Nancy ^was left
alone with her thoughts there in the west
room, which was deluged with the golden
sunshine of late afternoon in springtime.
In the evening there was to be a meet-
ing in the upper parish, and she fought
against her desire to go. Not for worlds
would she have her schoolmates know that
she had crept into a back seat at the meet-
ing the other night and had suddenly found
her face wet with tears. They should never
suspect that something was tugging at her
life deep down and making her most uncom-
fortable. She had been recklessly gay of
late just on purpose to cover up her real
feelings. More than once her friends at
[6]

Ann of Ava

school had predicted that something dreadful
would happen to her unless she sobered down.
In the " very heart of her soul " she was
sobering down at a tremendous rate, though
they surmised it not.

As the girl gazed dreamy-eyed and wistful
out toward the river, her mother lifted the
latch of the door. Quickly Nancy sprang to
her feet that her mother might not notice her
unusual thoughtfulness. The old restlessness
flashed back into her eyes, and her easy
bravado into her spirit and bearing. Mrs.
Hasseltine looked searchingly at her young-
est daughter, as she stood before her with
flushed face and wind-tossed curls, her slight
figure quivering with life. Her beauty was
like that of the April day, all glow and color
and promise. Mrs. Hasseltine drew the
girl into the warm, quiet kitchen where the
sunlight and firelight mingled their gleam
upon the low rafters. Together, mother and
daughter prepared the evening meal. The
teakettle swung on the crane humming its
steamy song, the potatoes snapped in the
ashes, and the smell of baked things came
from the deep, brick oven. As they worked.

Ann of Ava

they talked and they thought, and sometimes
their thoughts strayed far from their speech.
Nancy was still struggling with those phan-
toms which haunted her mind and whose
presence must be concealed. Her mother's
heart was filled with hopes and fears for her
youngest girl, who was so gay and sweet and
impetuous, like the tumultuous river in
springtime.

For Nancy the April days sped rapidly,
and joy and song were in the air, even though
a minor tune rang insistently in her heart.
One Sunday evening, Mr. Burnham, the
principal of the academy, came to make a
friendly call upon the Hasseltine family, as
was his frequent habit. He was a young
man, a Dartmouth student, who had taken
charge of the school in Bradford the year
before. There was something manly and
earnest about him which ^on the respect and
liking of his pupils and of people in general.
This Sunday evening, with Mr. and Mrs.
Hasseltine and the four girls, he was talk-
ing in very straightforward fashion. Finally
he made a remark which expressed Nancy's
inner mood so exactly that she could hardly
[8]

The Hasseltuie Home

Ann of Ava

conceal her embarrassment. He said that
sometimes people deliberately covered up
their real feelings because they were afraid
of becoming too serious. Nancy slipped out
into the garden under the fruit trees to
wrestle again with those troublesome thoughts
which would not let her alone.

That night and for days after, she thought
and thought until it seemed as if her brain
would burst with thinking. She wondered
if the Bible would help, but she could not
understand the Bible very well. God seemed
very far off and unapproachable. What
should she do? She was too unhappy to
pretend gaiety any longer, though not " for
the whole world," as she wrote in her diary,
would she have her schoolmates know that
she was disturbed by thoughts about God.

Frequently she shut herself in her room
to read the books Mr. Burnham had given
her and to try to pray. God still seemed
remote and stern to the troubled mind of
the girl, but gradually she began to realize
that Jesus Christ was real and human and
lovable. He could understand her perfectly,
and there was no fear in trusting her life

[9]

Ann of Ava

to One who really knew and loved without
limit. All the hero-worship of her soul went
out to him in a great wave of loyalty. His
perfect friendliness revealed God in a new
light of infinite love and gentleness. The
heavy weight of unhappiness that had dragged
upon her spirits for so many weeks was fully
and finally lifted.

Nancy was sixteen when she became a
Christian, and sixteen also when with others
of her school friends she joined the little
church at Bradford. About the same time
her father and mother became church-mem-
bers. It was through Nancy, his favorite
daughter, that John Hasseltine acknowledged
himself a Christian. One summer evening
the girl had knelt in her open window and
the tears came as they often did in those
days. Her father was crossing the field to-
ward the house when he looked up and saw
Nancy in all her loveliness kneeling and
weeping. She was his idol, and as he looked
at her he said to himself, " If my child, so
sweet and innocent, weeps when she comes
to God in prayer, what will become of me?"
Whereupon he walked out on his farm, threw
£10]

Ann of Ava

himself down under an oak tree and prayed.
From that night he was willing to be known
as a Christian man.

During the lovely summer days of the
year 1806, when school was still in session,
nearly all the boys and girls in Bradford
Academy thought hard about serious things.
As a result, many of them became Christians.
The young principal, Mr. Burnham, was an
inspiration to them all. For a time, classes
were actually suspended that teacher and
pupils might talk and pray together and
consider diligently what each might do to
help bring the world to Jesus Christ.

During those same midsummer days, an-
other group of students in another New
England town was facing the same tremen-
dous question and facing it with even greater
definiteness of purpose. Through the " di-
vinity that shapes our ends," those forces at
work simultaneously at Bradford Academy
and Williams College were to blend some day
into one great student movement to reach
around the world.

Among those whose lives were touched by
the wonderful influence of Bradford Acad-

[11]

Ann of Ava

emy in those early days was a slender, flower-
like girl named Harriet Atwood. She was
one of the younger girls who had come the
year before, when twelve years old, from
her home across the river in Haverhill. In
the sweet, sunshiny afternoons of July and
August, Harriet and Nancy joined their
schoolmates in lazy strolls down the grassy
path which led from the academy into the
depths of the wood. Red berries, trailing
vines, and deep-scented ferns grew in the
shade of the forest trees. Upon a mossy
bank the boys and girls sat and talked, with
all the golden enthusiasm of youth, of the
years to come, and of the exploits they would
do when they were men and women grown.
With her brown eyes sparkling and her voice
quivering with eagerness, Nancy spoke of
service and heroism. Little Harriet, large-
eyed and serious, was already dreaming of
sacrifice. But the long simimer days and
the " heart of the ancient wood " brought no
revealing hint of those thrilling experiences
which were to come even a few years hence
into the lives of Harriet Atwood and Nancy
Hasseltine.
[12]

II

THE SHADOW OF COMING
EVENTS

FOUR years passed, and summer days
came again to the valley of the
JNIerrimac. During the last week of
June a strange excitement stirred the little
village of Bradford, from the covered bridge
over the river unto the farthest farm on the
" Boston Road." In many a house busy
prei)arations were being made for dinner and
supper parties of varying size. At noon and
sunset time guests from near and far would
gather in the hospitable homes of Bradford
for the ample repasts for which New Eng-
land has always been famous.

With all the bustle and activity, a new
and thrilling interest occupied the minds of
the people. In the low-raftered kitchens and
out upon the green roadsides lively discussion
was carried on among young and old alike.
The cause of this unwonted excitement could
have been traced to the little parish meeting-
house which stood at the junction of the two

[13]

Ann of Ava

roads, across the way from the Kimball
Tavern. So simple was it that no chimney
or steeple dignified its exterior, yet beneath
its humble gable roof a great, historic event
was even now being enacted. In the boxed
pews sat the black-robed ministers from the
churches of Massachusetts who had come to
Bradford for three long June days of de-
liberation concerning the problems of the
New England parish. On horseback, by
chaise and by stage-coach they had jour-
neyed, these " Church fathers," as they were
respectfully called.

On the second day profound astonishment
seemed to take possession of the twenty-
eight clergymen in the pews and to lay hold
also upon the townspeople who had gathered
in the galleries around the three sides. The
air was electric with interest. Down near the
front sat four young men upon whom all
eyes were fastened. They were young col-
lege men now in Andover Theological Semi-
nary. Early that morning they had walked
the ten miles to Bradford in order to present
to the Massachusetts muiisters a momentous
proposition. Their written petition had just
[14]

Ann of Ava

been laid upon the communion table, after
having been read in the clear, deep voice of
Adoniram Judson, the spokesman of the
group. A responsive thrill stirred the people
as the young man took his seat. It was a
bold project he had advocated, seeming
scarcely reasonable, yet the conviction of the
four students was contagious.

In the summer of 1806 this " bold project "
had first crystallized into a serious purpose.
Almost simultaneously with the religious
awakening at Bradford Academy, five Chris-
tian students in Williams College had framed
a far-reaching resolution. One hot day in
August they went, according to habit, into
a maple grove to pray together. The sky
blackened with the approach of a thunder-
shower, and they hastened to a near-by hay-
stack for protection. There in the storm
they talked about the vast old continent of
Asia, concerning which they had read and
studied. They told tales of the ignorance
and wretchedness of its people, whereupon
Samuel Mills for the first time unfolded his
darling scheme of sending missionaries to
those heathen lands, perhaps even offering

[15]

Ann of Ava

their own lives for the great service. He
grew more and more enthusiastic as he talked,
until finally he exclaimed with a vehemence
none of them ever forgot, " We can do it if
we will!" Under his leadership a secret so-
ciety called the " Brethren " was organized
in Williams College, and those initiated
united in the purpose to go themselves as
missionaries to the non- Christian world. Af-
ter graduation, some of the " Brethren," in-
cluding Samuel Mills, went to Andover
Seminary to study for the ministry. There
they found kindred spirits in Samuel Newell
from Union College, Samuel Xott from Har-
vard, and Adoniram Judson from Brown
Universit}^ all of whom joined the order of
the " Brethren."

Everywhere he went Adoniram Judson
became a recognized leader. He was bril-
liant, forceful, imaginative, and an indomi-
table worker. At Brown he had led his
class, and at Andover he had received an
offer dazzling to the ambition of a young
theologue. He had been invited to become
associate pastor of the largest cliurch in
Boston and in all New England as well. But
[16]

Ann of Ava

no, his aspiration reached far beyond Boston
and the bounds of his country, even to the
ancient East, whither no missionary from
America had yet been sent. Thither he would
go, and to a people who had never heard the
name of Christ he would proclaim the Mas-
ter whom he was learning to serve with
passionate loyaltj^

In the Bradford meeting-house this June
day in 1810, Adoniram Judson with the
three " Samuels," his companions, boldly
asked to be sent by the churches of JNIassa-
chusetts on a mission to the heathen world!
Never yet had a missionary gone from
America to those countries beyond the seas,
months and months away. American sailors
who had touched the coasts of India, Burma,
and Africa brought home tales of the awful
degradation and savagery of the inhabitants.
Most people thought it was an insane notion
to dream of converting them to the Christian
religion.

Conflicting ideas battled in the minds of
the ministers. Upon first, and even second,
thought the undertaknig sounded " wild and
romantic"; yet upon the faces of the young

[17]

Ann of Ava

men they read clear-eyed conviction. They
were confident that the voice of God had
spoken. " We would better not try to stop
God," said one of the ministers. The as-
sembly waited, hushed and uncertain, listen-
ing intently, as each of the young men told
why he believed it his duty to give up home
and friends and go on the long, perilous jour-
ney to the heathen world. As in modern
business meetings, decision was referred to
a committee of three who were to report on
the morrow.

On Friday, the 29th of June, the commit-
tee appeared before the council and an-
nounced its verdict. They recommended that
the purpose of the young men be approved,
and, furthermore, that a foreign missionary
board be organized in America to insure the
support of the young volunteers and those
who should follow their example. They even
suggested its name, a long unwieldy one,
the " American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions." Without a protest the
report was adopted. It was a breathless mo-
ment for the four young men, who had hardly
dared to dream such a victory possible.
[18]

Ann of Ava

Every one present recognized that it was
their tremendous earnestness which had won
the day.

The session was dismissed for noon inter-
mission. A group of ministers, Adoniram
Judson in their midst, strolled up the road
past the academy to Deacon Hasseltine's
house, where they were invited to dine. In
the west room the table had been laid for
the noon dinner-party. The Hasseltines had
a widespread reputation for hospitality which
the tempting array of pies and cakes and
other eatables amply justified.

To Xancy, the youngest daughter of the
household, fell the task of serving her father's
guests. As she watched them coming up the
path from the gate, her flashing eyes revealed
her interest in the day's unusual event. At
twenty she was even more beautiful than the
girl of sixteen, for a sweet thoughtfulness
tempered the old laughing gaiety of eyes and
mouth. Her cheeks were flushed with the
heat and excitement of the day, her soft curls
clustered about her fair neck. Of all the
varied beauty of the day in June nothing
was so wondrous fair as the girl Nancy.

[19J

Ann of Ava

As the guests entered the room a pair of
keen, fearless brown eyes met hers, and their
gaze lingered as if spellbound. From the
moment Adoniram Judson and Nancy Has-
seltine looked into each other's eyes a great
and wonderful experience was born in the
lives of both.

During the meal, Adoniram Judson, noted
for his ready wit and social grace, was un-
accountably silent. For some reason he
seemed strangely preoccupied with his plate.
Nancy, who had heard of his eloquent speech,
his daring proclamation of his beliefs, mar-
veled at his stubborn silence. As she cut the
pies on the broad window-sill she cast a
furtive glance at the young man who was
the hero of the hour, but who could not be
persuaded to talk. Little did she dream
that his thoughts were forcibly diverted from
the absorbing theme which his companions
still discussed, and that deep down in his
mind he was composing a sonnet in honor of
the loveliest girl he had ever seen.

[20]

Ill

GIRL PIONEERS

ONE day, about a month after the
eventful gathering in the meeting-
house, the Boston stage-coach
brought to Bradford a certain small piece of
mail destined to become of large importance
in the lives of two people. It was a letter
carefully sealed with wax and in fine, firm
handwriting, addressed to Miss Nancy Has-
seltine. As the girl broke the seal joy and
fear mingled for one fleeting instant upon her
face.

For many days the letter lay unanswered,
but Nancy went about the house and along
the grassy highways of Bradford with the
light of a great wonder shining in her eyes.
Persistently, however, she feigned indiffer-
ence and deliberately postponed reply to the
letter. Finally, her sister, exasperated by her
procrastination, said to her, " Have you an-
swered that letter of Mr. Judson's? " " No,"
retorted Nancy with a toss of her brown
curls. " Then if you don't, I shall," re-
sponded the older sister.

[21]

Ann of Ava

The threat had the desired effect, and in
course of time a letter written and sealed by
Nancy Hasseltine reached Adoniram Judson
at Phillips Hall, Andover. That letter
brought an interesting challenge to the young
man who all his life had pushed his way
through every obstacle to the goal of his
ambition. In her girlish perversity and in
her real perplexity, Nancy had written a
cool, discouraging reply to his eager letter.
Adoniram Judson perceived her dilemma, for
with his fine sense of honor he realized keenly
the tremendous sacrifice he was demanding of
the girl he loved in asking her to become his
wife.

He might have offered her a comfortable
home in the city of Boston as the wife of one
of its leading clergymen. There her beauty
and intelligence would have shone in con-
spicuous brightness. Instead, he was invit-
ing her to share the uncertain lot of the first
missionary from America to the mysterious
regions of southern Asia. It was perfectly
reasonable to expect suffering and privation,
even persecution and death. Yet he believed
Ann Hasseltine was capable of just that high
[22]

Ann of Ava

heroism which such a hfe demanded. That
glad belief drew his steps confidently to-
ward Bradford during those wonderful sum-
mer days which were bringing deep heart-
searchings to the young man and woman.

On her part, Nancy was struggling with a
question which no woman in America had
yet been called upon to face. Should she
marry the man who was consuming her
thoughts and go away from her father's
house to a distant land probably never to
return? " Xo," said nearly every one whose
advice was sought, or who proffered an opin-
ion unasked. " It is altogether preposterous
for a woman to consider such a rash under-
taking." " It is utterly improper," said one;
" It is wild and romantic," said another. Mr.
Kimball, the father of one of Nancy's school
friends, declared that he would tie his daugh-
ter to the bedpost before he would let her go.
But the girl Nancy, with her old independ-
ent spirit deepened by a new sense of duty,
followed the call of God, regardless of im-
sympathetic comments.

There were a few people who stood by her
and encouraged her to dare all and go.

[JI8]

Ann of Ava

Among them was her sister Abigail, that
tall, self-possessed girl who afterwards be-
came principal of Bradford Academy and
retained that position for forty years. Abby
and Nancy were great chums, understanding
each other easily, even though they were quite
unlike in temperament, perhaps because of
that very fact. Abigail was teaching school
in Beverly and late in the summer her young
sister went to visit her. While there Nancy
wrote the following letter, in the rather pon-
derous English used in her time, to her old
school friend, Lydia, who lived near her in
Bradford:

Beverly, September 8, 1810.
" I have ever made you a confidant. I
will still confide in you and beg for your
prayers that I may be directed in regard to
the subject which I shall communicate. I
feel willing, and expect, if nothing in provi-
dence prevents, to spend my days in this
world in heathen lands. Yes, Lydia, I have
about come to the determination to give up
all my comforts and enjoyments here, sacri-
fice my affection to relatives and friends, and
[24]

Harriet Newell

Ann of Ava

go where God, iii his providence, shall see
fit to place me. My determinations are not
hasty or formed without viewing the dangers,
trials, and hardships attendant on a mission-
ary life. Nor were my determinations formed
in consequence of an attachment to an earthly
object; but with a sense of my obligation to
God, and with a full conviction of its being
a call of providence, and consequently my
duty. INIy feelings have been exquisite in
regard to the subject. Now my mind is
settled and composed, and is willing to leave
the event with God — none can support one
under trials and afflictions but he. In him
alone I feel a disposition to confide."

There was another girl friend of the old
academy days who must be told the great
news of her engagement and missionary pur-
pose. So, one October morning after her
return to Bradford, Nancy went through
the covered bridge which led across the INIer-
rimac into Haverhill, up the hill to the town
square and on to the house of Harriet At-
wood. Harriet had just passed her seven-
teenth birthday, and Nancy would be twenty-

[25]

Ann of Ava

one in December. To her little friend Nancy
confided her expectation of becoming the
wife of a missionary to India. Harriet's big,
brown eyes grew misty with wonder and sym-
pathy. In her diary that night she wrote
these words in a style which resembled
Nancy's :

" How did this news affect my heart ! Is
she willing to do all this for God; and shall
I refuse to lend my little aid in a land where
divine revelation has shed its clearest rays?
I have felt more for the salvation of the
heathen this day than I recollect to have felt
through my whole past life. . . . What can
I do, that the light of the gospel may shine
upon them? They are perishing for lack of
knowledge, while I enjoy the glorious privi-
leges of a Christian land. Great God direct
me! Oh, make me in some way beneficial to
their immortal souls ! "

In less than a month that same little diary
of Harriet's bore this entry:

" Sleep has fled from me and my soul is
enveloped in a dark cloud of troubles! Oh
[«6]

Ann of Ava

that God would direct me; that he would
plainly mark out the path of duty and let
me not depart from it."

In that short interim, Samuel Newell, one
of the missionary volunteers, had come into
Harriet's life; and by night and by day the
thoughts of the girl were dream-haunted.

The winter passed and the spring days
came again. One April evening while Har-
riet was visiting her sister in Charlestown,
she came back from Boston to find — a letter I
Just a slip of paper with a few strokes of the
pen upon it, but what agitation that can pro-
duce in a girl's inner being! She broke the
seal and read the words and the name she
had expected, yes, dreaded to see. To Har-
riet, as to Nancy, had come the great testing
of love and loyalty.

Through the tears which dimmed her eyes
Harriet wrote a few days later in her diary:

" The important decision is not yet made.
I am still wavering. I long to see and con-
verse with my dear mother! So delicate is
my situation that I dare not unbosom my
heart to a single person. What shall I do?

[27]

Ann of Ava

Could tears direct me in the path of duty,
surely I should be directed — ]My heart
aches; — I know not what to do! — " Guide
me, O Thou great Jehovah." I shall go
home on Tuesday. Perhaps my dear mother
will immediately say: Harriet shall never go.
Well, if this should be the case my duty
would be plain. I cannot act contrary to
the advice and express commands of a pious
mother."

When Tuesday came, Harriet mounted
the stage-coach which traveled between Bos-
ton and Haverhill and came again to her
mother's house in the town square. Before
crossing the Merrimac the stage lumbered
through Bradford along the " Boston Road,"
past the academy and the Hasseltine house.
The youngest and fairest daughter of that
Bradford household and the slender, brown-
eyed girl of Haverhill were destined not
many months hence to leave the sunny farms
of New England, even the dear home people
around the family hearth and go out across
two oceans to the mysterious land of southern
Asia and spend their lives among its pagan
people.
[28]

Ann of Ava

Harriet found her mother already pre-
pared for the solemn question which was in-
vading their home. In his stress of mind,
Samuel Newell had made a confidant of
Nancy Hasseltine, and she had been the
bearer of his troubled request to Harriet's
mother. With tears in her eyes that loyal
Christian woman replied, *' I dare not, I
cannot speak against it." Thus, when Har-
riet came home that April day, JNIrs. Atwood
was ready to trust the great decision to her
daughter's conscience. Since her father's
death, three years before, Harriet had clung
with increasing affection to her mother. Now,
a wonderful, new love was surging up in her
life, transforming her from a girl into a
woman and supplying her with purpose ir-
resistible. Samuel Newell had drav/n out the
deepest love of her maiden heart. Yet not
alone for the sake of her lover did she decide
upon the difficult life of a missionary, but
because she was determined down to the
depths of her pure soul to go wherever God
should lead her.

In June, Harriet and Samuel were com-
pelled to part for nine long months as the

[29]

Ann of Ava

young man was going to Philadelphia to join
his friend Gordon Hall in the study of
physics and medicine by way of further
preparation for their missionary work. It
was a lonely heart that was left behind in the
house in Haverhill. Nancy Hasseltine would
have been a great comfort, but Nancy was
away on a long visit in Salem.

Early in the winter Nancy had said good-
by to Adoniram Judson as he had set forth
on a far longer journey than the stage route
to Philadelphia. He had sailed on the ship
Packet for England, having been sent to
London by the directors of the new American
missionary society to confer with the older
English society as to some possible combina-
tion between the two organizations.

In those days a voyage to Europe was a
snail-like process consuming two months of
time. Letters traveled even more slowly, so
that Adoniram Judson could well-nigh come
again to the valley of the JSIerrimac before
Nancy would hear of his arrival on the
English shore. Hence it was many weeks
before the news reached Bradford of the
exciting adventures which befell the young
[30]

Ann of Ava

man on his trip across the Atlantic. His
ship was captured by a French privateer and
he was taken prisoner to Bayonne, France.
For six weeks he was detained there, although
early in his captivity he had been released
from prison on parole and allowed to board
in an American family in the city. It was
the 6th of IVIay before he reached London,
and in June, his business completed, he sailed
on the ship Augustus for New York. The
last of August brought him to his father's
home in Plymouth and to that other home
on the banks of the river in Bradford.

The return of Adoniram Judson with his
message from England was the signal for
another meeting of the men who had gathered
in the Bradford church a year and more ago.
On the 18th of September, the "Church
fathers," now the officers and members of
the new missionary society, assembled in the
town of Worcester, Massachusetts. Ado-
niram Judson, slight of build, even bojdsh
in appearance, but with piercingly bright
eyes and resonant voice, stood forth and
announced his decision. A joint missionary
enterprise between England and America

[31]

Ann of Ava

had been disapproved by the leaders in Lon-
don, but the London Missionary Society was
wiUing to adopt the American vohmteers as
its missionaries and promptly send them
forth to their distant posts of service. Con-
sequently, — and here Adoniram Judson ex-
hibited his tremendous power of determina-
tion, — if the American society refused his
appointment, he would become a missionary
of the English organi7ation. Samuel Nott
announced a similar resolve.

The unyielding purpose of the young men
proved the needed spur to action and the
American Board of Commissioners for For-
eign Missions then and there appointed its
first missionaries, Adoniram Judson, Samuel
Newell, Samuel Nott, and Gordon Hall.
For a second time victory was scored by
means of the bold consecration of the mis-
sionary volunteers.

The autumn days deepened into winter;
and hope and dread stirred the lives of Nancy
and Harriet, Adoniram and Samuel. The
time of their departure was drawing nigh.
In January an exciting message came from
Samuel Newell and Gordon Hall in Phila-
[32]

Adoniram Judson

Ann of Ava

delphia. In two weeks the ship Harmony
was to sail from that city to Calcutta and the
government would permit missionaries to take
passage. A second war with England was
threatening, and if they did not sail at once
ports might be blockaded and departure long
deferred.

Should they go? It was a terrific question
which pressed for immediate answer upon
the officers of the young mission board. Only
a small sum of money was in the treasury,
not enough to pay the passage fees. Was
it reasonable to expect that the actual de-
parture of missionaries for a heathen country
would attract attention and awaken sym-
pathy to such an extent that gifts of money
would be forthcoming? Should they boldly
venture and bravely trust? Long and anx-
iously they prayed and deliberated, seeking
to discern the right. At last the vote was
cast, and the verdict was — the missionaries
shall go!

To the Hasseltine and Atwood homes came
the word that Nancy and Harriet must soon
take their marriage vows and say farewell,
perhaps forever, to their childhood homes.

[33]

Ann of Ava

The piercing winds of a New England
winter swept through the valley of the Mer-
rimac and along the snowy highways of
Bradford, when, on the 5th of February, a
group of people gathered in the west room
of the Hasseltine house. A strange hush
fell upon the little company, and tears were
close to the eyes of every guest. Harriet
Atwood sat by the side of Samuel Newell,
her betrothed, a sad seriousness resting
upon her. But the center of interest
was the radiant, beautiful face of Nancy
Hasseltine as she gave her hand and heart
in marriage to the missionary, Adoniram Jud-
son, whom, less than two years before, she
had first met in this very room. Her brave,
unfaltering eyes shone with a wonderful light
as Pastor Allen gave the two young people
his blessing, called them " his dear children,"
and spoke lovingly of the labors they were to
perform.

From that night the girl Nancy, popular,
clever, beautiful, became the woman resource-
ful and heroic, who was destined to be known
in three continents as Ann Hasseltine Jud-
son, the heroine of Ava,
[34]

IV
A LONG GOOD-BY

ALTHOUGH it was a bitterly cold
Z_k day in February the streets of Salem
•^ JL-were well filled with people. In-
voluntarily on such a day one would hover
near the cheery kitchen fireplace with its
savory warmth. Instead, the people of this
seacoast town seemed to be drawn forth, as
by the spell of a Hamelin piper, toward one
enchanted spot, the white meeting-house
known as Tabernacle Church. From neigh-
boring towns sleighs brought bundled, shiver-
ing folk along the snowy roads to Salem.
From Andover, a delegation of students,
boys and young men, walked the entire six-
teen miles in the freezing cold of early morn-
ing, returning on foot late in the afternoon.
But cold and weariness were speedily for-
gotten in the great and absorbing interest
which centered in the day's events in Taber-
nacle Church.

On this sixth day of February, 1812, five
young men were to be ordained as Christian

[86]

Ann of Ava

ministers and commissioned by the Church
of America as its first missionaries to a
heathen country. In imagination people pic-
tured the separation from home, the long
voyage across the gray, wintry ocean, and
the possible hostility and persecution of the
savage inhabitants of those distant regions.
Every heart felt a throb of sympathy with
those dauntless young people who had al-
ready left their homes and were soon to de-
part from their native land perhaps forever.
Near the front of the church, before the
distinguished clergymen from Boston, Salem,
and other towns, knelt five volunteers for
missionary service, Adoniram Judson, Samuel
Newell, Samuel Nott, Gordon Hall, and a
new recruit, Luther Rice. A hand of fatherly
blessing was laid upon each youthful head
bowed in willing consecration to God and
obedience to his call. Kneeling there before
the elder ministers, these young men in their
purity and earnestness resembled Sir Gala-
had as he knelt before his superior knight,
Sir Launcelot, to receive the " high order
of knighthood." For a more perilous quest
than that of Sir Galahad for the Holy Grail,
[36]

Ann of Ava

they vowed their allegiance as knights of the
great King whose Round Table is in very
truth the whole, round world.

During the dedication service many eyes
turned from the young missionaries to linger
lovingly upon a girlish figure kneeling rever-
ently by the side of a boxed pew near the
front. A scoop bonnet, the fashion of the
day, covered her brown curls and partly
shielded the brave, beautiful face of Mrs.
Adoniram Judson, the bride of a single day.
On her long visit in Salem, Nancy Hassel-
tine had become well known in town. More-
over, in her school-days, stories of her gaiety
and beauty had drifted through the country-
side, — stories which reached a high climax
in the announcement of her decision to go as
a foreign missionary, — an unprecedented ca-
reer for an American woman. A solemn joy
seemed to radiate through her kneeling figure
during the service which sacredly sealed her
marriage vows.

Another girlish face tugged hard* at the
heartstrings of the people. It was that of
Harriet Atwood, the young woman who
witliin a few days would become the bride

[37]

Ann of Ava

of Samuel Xewell and go with him across
the great seas to a new home in the far
East. She was a fragile flower of girlhood,
apparently unfitted for storm and tempest;
but those who looked into the depths of her
sad, brown eyes read there the indomitable
purpose dwelling in her frail body.

At the close of that memorable day, Sam-
uel Nott, Gordon Hall, and Luther Rice
took their departure for Philadelphia, expect-
ing to sail in a few days on the Harmony
for Calcutta.^ The others lingered in Beverly
and Salem, waiting for wind and tide to
favor the sailing of the brig Caravan from
the port of Salem bound for the coast of Asia.

Already the little boat was rocking at its
moorings out in the harbor. Compared with
the gigantic steamships which cross the ocean
to-day, she was a baby craft of perhaps five
hundred tons' burden. The Mayflower was
about one third the size of the Caravan, while
the Titanic was one hundred times larger.
On board, her crew were receiving freight
and provisions for the long voyage around
the Cape of Good Hope to India.

On shore, four people looked anxiously
[38]

The " Caravan

Ann of Ava

each day out toward the black masts of the
ship which was to bear them away from
everything dear and familiar into experiences
which God alone knew. Enough that he
knew and would provide for the whole, un-
certain future of their lives 1

On Monday, the 17th of February, a ter-
rific storm fell upon Salem, almost burying
the town in snow. The next day dawned
bleak and cold, with a presage in the air of
coming events. Before the forenoon was
past the desired and dreaded summons be»
came a reality. A message was brought to
the Judsons and Xewells requesting them to
go on board at once, that the ship might be
ready to sail with the first friendly breeze.

The inevitable " last things " were hastily
collected and carried down to the wharf. The
sleigh stood at the door and the long, long
good-bys must be said. Down through the
snowy streets of Salem to the end of the
lowest wharf in town the missionaries were
driven, thence to be transferred by the cus-
tom-house boat to the Caravan out in the bay.

It was a dreary, frigid day, but neverthe-
less a number of friends gathered at the end

[39]

Ann of Ava

of the pier to show their sympathy with the
young missionaries and their brave purpose.
During the two weeks of w^aiting for the
Caravan to sail, interest in the new under-
taking had mightily deepened. Even those
opposed could not check their hearts' impulse
to lavish kindness upon the missionaries and
their j'^outhful brides. A purse of fifty dol-
lars was left at the door one day with the
label, " For Mr. Judson's private use." Best
of all, money for outfits and salaries had been
almost miraculously provided. On January
twenty-seventh only twelve hundred dollars
was in the treasury of the new mission board.
Within three weeks more than six thousand
dollars had been freely given, and by the time
the two sliips Harmony and Caravan sailed
the needs of the missionaries were supplied
for a year in advance.

The west wind, which throughout the day
had given promise of departure to the long-
delayed ship, died away at dusk, and thus
removed all hope of sailing that night. From
the deck of the Caravan the surrounding
scene was desolation itself. The sky was
ominously black and dark, stormy waters
[40]

Ann of Ava

stretched away seaward. On shore, dim lit-
tle lights spoke tantalizingly of home. But
within, the cabin of the Judsons presented
a sharp contrast to the dolefulness without.
Adoniram and Ann Judson, Samuel and
Harriet Newell, and two young men friends
who were spending the night on board, talked
exultingly together of their high hopes for
a great work to be achieved in Christ's name
in the needy countries of the ancient East.
They sang hymns from an old singing-book
long since forgotten, and they prayed in the
" quietness and confidence " which was their
daily strength. Ann Judson, shiny eyed and
triumphant, sang and talked with almost her
usual animation. Somewhat quieter than the
others was the youngest of their number,
Harriet Newell. Her thoughts clung wist-
fully to the mother away over the snowy
fields in Haverhill town. Late in the evening
she wrote her a letter to be sent back by the
pilot- boat on the morrow: — '* Here am I,
my dear mother, on board the brig Caravan
in a neat little cabin. ... I have at length
taken leave of the land of my forefathers and
entered the vessel which will be my place of

[41]

Ann of Ava

residence till I reach the desired haven.
Think not, my dear mother, that we are now
sitting in silent sorrow, strangers to peace.
O, no; though the idea that I have left you,
to see you no more, is painful indeed, yet I
think I can say that I have found the grace
of my Redeemer sufficient for me — his
strength has been made perfect in my weak-
ness. We have been engaged in singing this
evening, and can you believe me when I tell
you that I never engaged in this delightful
part of worship with greater pleasure? . . .
I never shall repay you, my dear mother,
for all the kindness and love you have shown
me thus far in life. Accept my sincere thanks
for every favor, and O, forgive me for so
often causing you pain and anxiety. May
the Almighty reward you a hundred-fold for
your kindness to me. And now, my dear
mother, what more shall I say but ask you
to pray for me and engage other Christians
to do the same. ... It is late — I must re-
tire — dear mother, adieu."

The following morning, the 19th of Febru-
ary, a little after sunrise, the Caravan spread
[42]

Ann of Ava

her sails to the wind and steered her course
straight out to sea. The tall chimney at the
entrance of the harbor was a landmark long
to be distinguished as it traced a black perpen-
dicular against the snowy New England hills.
But by and by it vanished into dim space and
the great, gray ocean was all around.

[43]

PERPLEXITIES ON EVERY SIDE

INSIDE a musty old tavern made of mud
and straw, on the banks of the Hoogly
river in India, a young woman waited
in lonely suspense. The desolateness of her
attitude might have revealed her a stranger
in a strange land, even had her brown hair
and fair skin not marked her instantly as
different from the richly brunette women of
India. In beauty, however, she belonged
among the loveliest in that land of lovely
women, and the sad anxiety in her eyes added
a softened appeal to her charm.

For the first time since she landed in India
five months before, Ann Judson found her-
self alone and unprotected among the strange,
dark people of the country, with their
stranger tones and gestures. Where her hus-
band was and when he would come, she did
not know. They had been separated sixteen
miles up the river when they received the
government order to leave the ship in which
they had taken flight from Calcutta two days
[44]

Ann of Ava

previously. Here she was, without escort,
with only a few rupees in her purse, only a
few words of the language at her command,
the old thatched tavern her only place of
refuge, and even its hospitality uncertain.
Her father's house in Bradford seemed mil-
lions of miles away, as if it were upon an-
other planet, and her girlhood life in the
New England village almost like another
existence.

This was the solid reality of missionary
experience of which she had vaguely dreamed
in the early days of her engagement to Ado-
niram Judson. " These are the trials which
attend a missionary's life and which I antici-
pated," she said to herself, " and which, with
God's help, I am ready to meet."

It was a series of disappointing adventures
which had led up to Ann's desolate situation
in the river tavern. When our American
missionaries landed in Calcutta in June,
1812, the East India Company had promptly
turned its hostile eye upon them and deter-
mined to force them out of the country. This
company was a trading corporation which at
that time controlled Great Britain's policy in

[45]

Ann of Ava

India. Its officials had no welcome for mis-
sionaries, because it was feared that any 'at-
tempt to interfere with the idolatrous religion
of the native peoples would breed rebellion to
British rule. Moreover, a large revenue
poured into the treasury of the company from
protection given to idol worship, so that the
heathen religion was financially profitable.
A year later, by the efforts of some Christian
gentlemen in England, the charter of the
East India Company was amended in its
passage through Parliament to insure tolera-
tion to missionaries in India.

In 1812, however, the little groups of
American pioneers arriving by the Caravan,
and six weeks later by the Harmony, felt the
full brunt of government opposition, ag-
gravated by the hostile relations then exist-
ing between England and America because
of the second war between the two countries.

Upon landing in India the Judsons and
Newells had been invited to Serampore to
visit the English Baptist missionaries until
their companions should arrive by the Har-
mony and locations for the new missions be
determined. William Carey, the first Eng-
[46]

Ann of Ava

lish foreign missionary, with his colleagues,
Marshman and Ward, had, by persistent
struggle, built up a wonderful missionary
enterprise in the town of Serampore on the
Ganges, fifteen miles from Calcutta.

Here the newcomers spent ten happy, ab-
sorbing days observing the customs of the
country and trying to decide, with the help
of the older missionaries, where they would
settle. Burma had been the land of desire
for Adoniram Judson since his student days
at Andover, when he had read Col. Symes's
'Embassy to Ava, and his imagination had
responded to its glowing pictures of Oriental
life. But Burma was a forbidden territory
to missionaries, so said Dr. Carey, because
of the cruel despotism of its government and
brutal savagery of its inhabitants. Two
Englishmen had attempted a mission there,
but had abandoned it as hopeless. Dr.
Carey's son, the only missionary then in
Burma, had been obliged to take refuge for
fifty days on an English frigate, and his re-
turn to the country had been on precarious
terms. Burma presented a dismal prospect;
but where should they go to escape the hos-

[47]

Ann of Ava

tility of the East India Company and find
a people who would listen to their message?

One July afternoon their deliberations met
with a vigorous interruption. An official
messenger arrived at Serampore bearing a
summons for Mr. Judson and Mr. Newell
to present themselves immediately at the
police office in Calcutta. There, an order
from the Governor-general was read to them,
commanding them to return to America upon
the very ship on which they had come, the
Caravan, then making ready for her west-
ward voyage. Captain Heard had been re-
fused a clearance from port unless he gave
security that his missionary passengers would
be taken on board. What should they do?
It was insufferable to think of going home
before their work was even begun. The dis-
appointment and humiliation were over-
whelming, but the belief that God had sent
them and meant them to remain was un-
shaken.

There seemed to be but one way of escape,
— to seek some other heathen country, out-
side the jurisdiction of the East India Com-
pany. So, with sudden, desperate purpose
[48]

Ann of Ava

they asked permission to embark for the Isle
of France. The Isle of France, now Mauri-
tius, was five thousand miles southwest, near
Madagascar. Their request was granted, and
on the fourth day of August Samuel Newell
and his frail wife sailed away from all their
friends in a small ship bound for Port Louis,
in the Isle of France. The vessel could
accommodate but two passengers, and the
Newells were chosen to go because Har-
riet's frail health made a home an urgent
necessity.

Four months longer Adoniram and Ann
Judson lingered in Calcutta, living in daily
dread of summary dismissal from the coun-
try. Mr. Rolt, an English gentleman, re-
lieved somewhat their embarrassing predica-
ment by offering the hospitality of his home.
There, in his spacious English house, while
waiting for a way out of their dilemma, the
greatest of their many perplexities assailed
them.

They were confronted by a troublesome
problem which could not be evaded, and
which pressed daily upon their minds for so-
lution. On shipboard, while making the long

[49]

Ann of Ava

voyage of four months from America to
India, they had first grappled with the ques-
tion of the Baptist belief as distinguished
from that of the Congregationalists, and Mr.
Judson's old convictions had become strangely
disturbed. At first Mrs. Judson took the
opposite side in argument and declared with
her old independence, " If you become a
Baptist, I will not."

During the first weeks on shore the ques-
tion was silenced by the more urgent demand
for home and shelter. But in the long sum-
mer days in Calcutta, in the seclusion of Mr.
Rolt's library, the subject recurred with
painful insistence, and they resolved to deal
conscientiously and thoroughly with its
claims. The result was that they felt them-
selves compelled by conviction to withdraw
from the Congregationalists, with whom their
lot had been cast since childhood, and to join
the Baptists.

In those days communions were more
sharply divided than to-day, and to change
from one to another usually meant a heroic
act of conscience. Especially for the pioneer
missionaries was it a difficult and brave de-
[60]

Ann of Ava

cision. They could hardly expect the con-
tinued support of the Congregationalists, nor
could they confidently look to the Baptists
for financial aid, since that denomination was
not organized for missionary activity. Where
should they turn? Supporters and friends
would be likely to misinterpret their action.
Even their own families, when removed by
so great a distance, might find their decision
hard to understand and accept. Hardest of
all they would probably have to be separated
in future work from their companions, those
old schoolmates and friends who had come to
India with them. " A renunciation of our
former sentiments has caused us more pain
than anything which has ever happened to us
through our lives," wrote Mrs. Judson in a
home letter.

One happy surprise came to relieve their
downcast condition. To the amazement of
all his associates, Luther Rice quietly an-
nounced his intention to join the Baptists.
In the secrecy of his own thoughts he had
been dealing with the question, and his con-
clusion was thus reached independently of
outside influence. It was a great solace to

[61]

Ann of Ava

the Judsons in their lonely outlook to have
the assurance of his companionship in their
new mission, wherever it might be.

Another strong encouragement came from
the splendid generosity of the missionaries at
Serampore. They held a consultation and
agreed to supply funds for the American
missionaries out of their own treasury in case
money did not arrive from America when
needed. They would advance the sums re-
quired, and if the American societies could
reimburse them, well and good, if not, they
would count it a gift to the cause of Christ.

Mr. Rolt was unfailing in his interest and
sympathy with the young people who had
come so many thousands of miles from home
on a mission of good-will, and had met such a
frosty reception at the hands of government
authorities. They continued to be his guests
until late in November, when one day, about
Thanksgiving time at home in New England,
a startling order was brought to the house in
Calcutta. Mr. and Mrs. Judson and Mr. Rice
were commanded by the government to em-
bark at once for England upon a vessel of
the East India Company. Their names were
[52j

Ann of Ava

published in the newspaper lists of passengers
on the England-bound ship. All hope of es-
cape seemed to be cut off this time, but the
two young men and one young woman were
not ready to acknowledge themselves beaten
by the whole East India Company, so again
they tried to circumvent its order.

By some means Mr. Judson and Mr. Rolt
discovered that a ship named the Creole
would sail in two days for the Isle of France.
They applied to the chief magistrate for a
passport, but he refused them. They then
asked the captain if he would take them on
board without a pass. He replied: "There
is my ship, do as you please." With Mr.
Rolt's assistance they secured coolies to carry
their baggage, and at midnight " stole like
criminals " through the deserted streets of
Calcutta, through the gates of the dockyards,
which, contrary to night rules, opened to
admit them, and on board the forbidden ves-
sel. The next morning the Creole sailed out
of Calcutta harbor, down the Hoogly river
toward the Bay of Bengal and the open sea.

For two days all was well on shipboard,
but toward evening of the second day, a

[63]

Ann of Ava

government dispatch overtook them forbid-
ding the pilot to proceed since there were
passengers on the ship who had been ordered
to England. The pursued passengers must
needs leave the vessel at once, even in the
darkness of evening, so the two young men
entered a small boat to go on shore to a
tavern about a mile away. The captain, with
the gallantry born of the sight of a lovely
woman in distress, bade Mrs. Judson spend
the night on the ship, where their baggage
also would be allowed to remain. It would
be quite safe for her he assured her, even
though an officer should come to search the
boat.

Through the night and the next day the
Creole lay at anchor waiting for orders.
When evening came, Mrs. Judson also was
forced to depart hurriedly for land. The
owner of the ship heard of its detention and
went to police headquarters to inquire the
reason. There he was informed that " it was
suspected there were persons on board whom
the captain had been forbidden to receive."
The ship could not proceed until it was
proved that no such parties were among the
[64.]

Ann of Ava

passengers. Mrs. Judson hastened on shore
in a small boat while the pilot wrote a cer-
tificate that the suspected people were not
on the ship.

At the tavern ^Irs. Judson found her hus-
band and Mr. Rice and in tense anxiety
they consulted as to their next move. What
should they do? Escape on the Creole was
now hopelessly blocked without a passport.
Return to Calcutta would be but a confes-
sion of defeat. Where was the way out of
this labyrinth of perplexities? Mr. Rice de-
cided to start for Calcutta at once, to make
one more effort to secure a pass. Mr. and
Mrs. Judson spent the night and the next
day at the tavern, watching in vain for a
message from the ship where their baggage
still remained, and dreading lest every
European in sight was spying upon their
movements. Mr. Rice came back from Cal-
cutta to report another refusal. The owner
of the ship was in high dudgeon because his
vessel was delayed so long on their account.
" Perplexed on every side, yet not unto
despair," because, as Harriet Newell once
said: "He who takes care of the ravens will

[65]

Ann of Ava

not forsake his own children in the hour of
their affliction."

Another uneasy night at the tavern and
in the morning a disquieting message from
the captain of the Creole! He was per-
mitted to sail, but they must remove their
baggage from the ship at once. It seemed
unwise to linger longer at the tavern, so
they decided to journey on to another little
Indian inn sixteen miles down the river. It
would be hazardous for the two men to show
themselves on the prohibited vessel, so JNIrs.
Judson went alone on board the Creole and
made arrangements for the transfer of their
baggage. As she could find no small boat,
she asked the captain if the baggage might
be left where it was until the next tavern was
reached. Not only did he readily consent,
but invited Mrs. Judson to make the journey
herself on his vessel, saying that the river
trip in a small craft would be exceedingly
unpleasant.

Again she hurried on shore to notify her

companions of this change of plan. For the

second time Mr. Rice set out for Calcutta to

secure passage, if possible, for Ceylon. Mr.

[56]

Ann of Ava

Judson hired a boat for his own transporta-
tion down the river to the tavern appointed.
Meanwhile, ]Mrs. Judson returned to the
Creole in the pilot's boat which he had
courteously sent on shore for her use. It
was an exciting and dangerous chase after
the ship which had slipped rapidly down
stream with the tide. The river was rough
because of the high wind, and the tropical
sun blistering in its rays of heat. The
native rowers hoisted a sail so large that
repeatedly it tilted the boat on one side.
To allay the fears of their fair lady passen-
ger they kept repeating, " Cutcha pho annah,
sahib, cutcha pho annah" " Never fear,
madam, never fear."

Safely at last they came alongside the
large vessel, hastened on board, and soon
stopped opposite the uninviting old tavern
to which Mrs. Judson must go alone. Again
the pilot offered his boat to convey her on
shore. There, with all speed, she arranged
for another boat to go out to the Creole to
remove their baggage. Finally, the neces-
sary business done, she turned hesitatingly
toward the thatched tavern which must har-

Ann of Ava

bor her, welcome or not, until her husband
should arrive.

Longer than it has taken us to recount
these adventures, did Ann Judson have to
watch and wait for the coming of her hus-
band. Several hours dragged by before he
appeared at the entrance of the tavern and
eagerly sought his wife. Thankfully the two
greeted each other, their relief at their mutual
safety overcoming for a time anxiety for
the future.

Quickly, however, they began to strain
every nerve of thought to find a way out of
their present dilemma. Should they, after
all, return to Calcutta and face the worst,
or should they confide in the tavernkeeper
and seek his assistance? Anything seemed
preferable to a retreat to the city which had
exiled them, so they asked the innkeeper if
he could help them secure a passage to
Ceylon? He replied that a captain who was
a friend of his was due on the morrow, and
that very likely he might take them on his
ship bound for Madras. Encouraged by this
possibility and by the safe arrival of their
baggage, they waited two days at the tavern,
[68]

Ann of Ava

during which time JNIr. Rice rejoined his
companions. On the third day the looked-
for vessel anchored directly opposite the
tavern. The innkeeper went on board to
intercede on behalf of his fugitive guests, but
returned with the refusal of the captain to
receive them as passengers. Thereupon they
resolved to interview the stubborn captain
themselves and beg for leniency. With this
slender hope in mind, they sat down to sup-
per when a letter was handed to them I
They felt as if an actual miracle had been
wrought when they foiind that the letter
contained a pass from the chief magistrate
for embarkation on the Creole for the Isle
of France. " Who procured this pass for
us, or in what way, we are still ignorant:
we could only view the hand of God and
wonder." Thus wrote Mrs. Judson in a
long home letter detailing her many ad-
ventures.

Then followed a frantic pursuit of the
Creole^ which they feared might be already
out at sea, since she had three days' start.
It was just possible that she might be an-
chored at Saugur, seventy miles down stream,

[69]

Ann of Ava

at the entrance of the Hoogly river. At any
rate, they must make the venture and hasten
the pursuit. As soon as darkness fell the
three fugitives hurried into a small boat and
pushed out against the tide for their race to
safety. All that night JNIrs. Judson watched
with wide-open eyes by the side of her hus-
band, who slept peacefully until morning.

The next day wind and tide sped them on
their way, and by nightfall Saugur was in
sight with the masts of many ships at anchor.
Was the Creole among them, or had she al-
ready crossed the invisible boundary between
river and bay and sailed beyond recall ? With
eager eyes they scanned the boats and, joy
to behold — there was the Creole in their
midst! For two days she had been anchored
at Saugur waiting for members of her crew.
" I never enjoyed a sweeter moment in my
life than that when I was sure we were in
sight of the Creole!' wrote Ann Judson to
the Hasseltine house in Bradford.

[60]

VI
THE ISLE OF FRANCE

SOMETIMES it happens that the love-
liest scene in nature becomes the back-
ground of the most woful tragedy.
The Isle of France, for natural beauty, was
among the most charming of the islands of the
Indian Ocean. Blue, blue sky was reflected
in the waters of the reef-bound harbor, and
filmy clouds brooded upon the summits of the
mountains. Gleaming springs flashed like
quicksilver down the shadowy mountainsides,
and the scarlet and blue blossoms of the
climbing plant hung from the dark cliffs. In
the woods and valleys grew lemon and orange
trees, date and coco palms, and a tangle of
brightly-colored, fragrant flowers.

It was this setting of tropical verdure which
Saint Pierre chose for his tragic and true
tale. Paid and Virginia. It was in the city
of Port Louis, at the foot of the moun-
tain which sheltered in a rock-bound vale the
cabin of Paul and Virginia, that, one hun-
dred years later, Samuel and Harriet Newell

[61]

Ann of Ava

met the tragedy of their young lives. Here,
also, Ann and Adoniram Judson came too
late to succor their friends in their hour of
need.

In January, 1813, after nearly two months
of contrary winds and rough seas, the Creole
sailed into the harbor of Port Louis and
dropped anchor. On deck Mrs. Judson stood
with her husband and Mr. Rice, gazing at
the fairyland scene before them, wondering
if there at last they would find the home
they had sought so many months in vain,
wondering too, how soon they would greet
Samuel and Harriet Newell and with them
compare adventures of the past and pros-
pects for the future. As they lingered on
the ship waiting for some means of trans-
portation to shore, a young man came on
board to welcome them, but so slow and
reluctant was his step, so changed and hag-
gard his face, they scarcely recognized their
old friend, Samuel Newell. Before he could
speak Ann Judson read the tale which his
sorrowful, beseeching eyes revealed. Har-
riet, his own beloved Harriet had left him —
alone in the world. In broken snatches,
[62]

Ann of Ava

then and later, he told his friends of his
bitter loss.

The ship on which the Newells had taken
passage from Calcutta the August before
had been battered unmercifully by winds and
waves, so that the voyage lengthened into
three anxious months. Far out on the Indian
ocean a baby girl was born in the little cabin
on the ship's deck and given her mother's
name, Harriet Atwood. For a few days
joy and hope abounded in the hearts of the
parents, but speedily cold and rain fell upon
the ill-fated ship, and the baby, unable to
endure the exposure, died in her mother's
arms. After the child's death Harriet showed
the first signs of the fatal disease which
rapidly consumed her life.

When at length the dreadful voyage was
over and the belated ship came to port, a
British surgeon and a Danish physician min-
istered to the sick wife, but to no avail.
Gradually her strength waned until the last
flicker of hope for her recovery vanished.
Night and day Samuel Newell sat by the
bedside of his dear one trying to catch every
precious word she spoke. Her thoughts

[63]

Ann of Ava

seemed to dwell with perfect restfulness upon
Christ and heaven, recurring sometimes to
her mother across the seas in the Atwood
homestead in Haverhill. " Tell my dear
mother," she said, " how much Harriet loved
her. Tell her to look to God and keep near
to him and he will support and comfort her
in all her trials. Tell my brothers and sisters,
from the lips of their dying sister, that there
is nothing but religion worth living for.
Tell them, and also my dear mother, that
I have never regretted leaving my native
land for the cause of Christ."

One afternoon in November, the blindness
of death sealed Harriet's brown eyes, and
there, in the little mud-walled cottage, she
quietly breathed her last. Throughout that
awful night Samuel Newell watched beside
his dead, a Negro servant his only companion
in the silent house. In a land of strangers,
without one friend to weep with him, he fol-
lowed the body of his wife to the graveyard
of Port Louis, where, in the heathy ground,
under an evergreen tree which suggested her
New England home, was buried the young
woman who was the first American to give
[64]

Ann of Ava

her life for the cause of Christ in the non-
Christian world.

Ann Judson's thoughts turned mournfully
toward that burial spot which was the symbol
of her welcome in the Isle of France. Who
could have thought that death would so
speedily claim one of their little band, whose
lives were all the more precious to one another
because they were so few in number and so
immeasurably far from home? With but
small assurance that this far-away island was
to be their permanent home, the Judsons
settled themselves in Port Louis and waited
for some unmistakable signs of God's guid-
ance. As they waited, they watched for
opportunities to serve the need of the people
about them. On Sunday Mr. Judson or
Mr. Rice preached to the British soldiers
stationed on the island. The governor was
friendly and would permit a Christian mission
to be establislied, even though he had received
warning from the British government at
Bengal to " keep an eye upon those Ameri-
can missionaries." Moreover, there was con-
vincing evidence of the ignorance and degra-
dation of the inhabitants of the island.

[65]

Ann of Ava

One evening there was a hideous commo-
tion in the courtyard which adjoined the Jud-
sons' house in Port Louis. A Negro slave
stood with her hands tied behind her back
while her mistress beat her unmercifully with
a club. Promptly Mrs. Judson opened her
door and ventured upon the scene. In broken
French she begged the cruel mistress to stop
beating her slave. Surprised by the inter-
ruption and by the gentle beauty of the
strange lady, the woman ceased her blows
but angrily insisted that the servant was very
bad and had recently run away. Mrs. Jud-
son talked quietly with the enraged mistress
until her anger seemed to be appeased, al-
though, as a parting taunt, she hurled her
club at the slave's head with such force that
blood ran down upon the girl's clothes. All
night the poor creature was left with her
hands tied behind her back, and in the morn-
ing she was released and set to work.

The second night the clank of an iron
chain was heard as it was dragged across
the courtyard. From her quarters in the
neighboring house Mrs. Judson saw, to her
horror, that the heavy chain was intended for

Ann of Ava

the unfortunate slave. To one end of the
long chain was fastened a ring large enough
to be locked around her neck, and to the
ring were attached two pieces of iron which
would press against her face on either side
and prevent her eating. The slave girl stood
trembling as they prepared to put the chain
upon her. At mere sight of her servant the
mistress fell into a furious temper and began
beating her as she had done the night be-
fore. Again she was intercepted by the firm
hand and gentle voice of Mrs. Judson.
" Your servant is very bad, no doubt," she
said in her pretty foreign accent, " but you
will be very good to forgive her." Again
the mistress drew back her club and finally,
yielding to entreaty, consented to forgive her
slave and release her from the punishment
decreed. Emphatically she declared that par-
don was granted, not out of any consideration
for the slave, but simply because the Ameri-
can lady requested it. The terrified Negress
was made to understand the terms of her
release. Whereupon she knelt and kissed
the feet of the fair white lady who had
saved her, crying, " Merd, madame, merd,

[67]

Ann of Ava

madame." Mrs. Judson could scarcely keep
back her tears as she received the gratitude of
the slave girl. She returned to the house
happy-hearted because she had delivered one
poor slave from a night of physical misery,
but at the same time brooding sadly upon the
spiritual misery which she saw daily in the
faces of the people about her.

In JNIarch JNIr. and Mrs. Judson were left
alone in the Isle of France. Mr. Newell
departed for Ceylon, away from the scene
of his desolated life, and Mr. Rice actually
sailed for America, the dear homeland which
grew dearer every day. He was going back
to tell the Baptist churches, what letters could
never adequately tell, that the heathen peo-
ples he had seen were in desperate need of
the knowledge of Christ, and that over there
in distant Asia a young man and his wife
were eagerly waiting to be adopted as the
first missionaries of the Baptist denomination
in America.

Meanwhile, those two young people lin-
gered in Port Louis watching daily for some
indication to tell them the place in which God
had appointed them to live and labor. There
[68]

Ann of Ava

was some promise of usefulness in the Isle of
France, yet when they compared its popula-
tion with that of other regions of the Orient
they could not feel warranted in remaining.
The ancient East contained hundreds of mil-
lions of people, but Christian missionaries
were not many more in number than the
original group of twelve whom Christ com-
missioned to "go and make disciples of all
the nations." Among " all the nations " of
Asia where should they find a strategic place
to establish a Christian mission? This was
the anxious query which pervaded the spring
days in the tropic island, and to which the
summer gave answer unexpected and un-
welcome.

[69]

VII
A HOME AT LAST

WHEN Nancy Hasseltine was a
gay, restless schoolgirl her mother
once reproved her by saying, " I
hope, my daughter, you will one day be sat-
isfied with rambling." Little did the girl or
mother dream how literally those words
would be fulfilled. From the day in June
when Mr. and Mrs. Judson went on shore
from the Caravan in Calcutta harbor, for a
whole long year they knew little else but
rambling, — incessant traveling from place
to place in weary, anxious search for some
spot they would be allowed to call home.
They had now embarked from the Isle of
France, intending to settle in Pulo Penang,
or Prince of Wales' Island, in the Malacca
Strait, which, since its purchase by the
British, was receiving a large population of
Hindus, Chinese, Burmans, and Siamese. No
ship sailed directly from the Isle of France
to Penang, so they must needs take passage
to Madras, expecting to proceed thence to
the Malacca Strait.
[70]

Ann of Ava

Early in June the travelers found them-
selves again in the domains of the East India
Company which twice before had decreed
their exile. Their arrival in Madras was
promptly reported to the police and the»
report forwarded to the supreme government
in Bengal. It was plainly to be seen that
as soon as a return message could reach
Madras they would be arrested and ordered
to England. Escape must be immediate and
final. Several vessels lay at anchor in the
Madras roads and Mr. Judson anxiously in-
quired their destination, knowing that the
direction of those ships soon to sail must
determine the fate of himself and his wife
and the new mission.

Alas, only one would sail in time and that
one was destined for the port most dreaded,
most formidable in all the eastern world,
Rangoon, Burma! The question was now
brought to an issue decisive and unescapable.
Burma it must be or Europe and home!
Which? Yes, which? Should they venture
into that wild, barbaric country, outside a
civilized government, inside a despotic mon-
archy of the most merciless variety? All

[71]

Ann of Ava

their new-found friends in Madras protested
against it. The test was stupendous for two
young people not yet twenty-five years of
age, and it threw them upon God as their
only dependence.

About this time the diary of Ann Judson
bore a troubled entry:

" June 20th. We have at last concluded,
in our distress, to go to Rangoon, as there
is no vessel about to sail for any other place
ere it will be too late to escape a second
arrest. O, our heavenly Father, direct us
aright! Where wilt thou have us go? What
wilt thou have us do? Our only hope is in
thee, and to thee alone we look for protec-
tion. ... I have been accustomed to view
this field of labor with dread and terror, but
I now feel perfectly willing to make it my
home the rest of my life. . . . To-morrow
we expect to leave this place and the few
friends we have found here. Adieu to pol-
ished, refined. Christian society. Our lot is
not cast among you, but among pagans,
among barbarians, whose tender mercies are
cruel. Indeed, we voluntarily forsake you
[72]

Ann of Ava

and for Jesus' sake choose the latter for our
associates."

The voyage to Burma proved to be every
whit as disagreeable as anticipations of the
country had been. It was the most distress-
ing and dangerous journey they had ever
experienced, not excepting Mr. Judson's trip
to England when he was captured by pirates.
First of all, a disastrous catastrophe took
place at the outset of the voyage. Because
of Mrs. Judson's frail health her friends in
Madras had procured a European woman
servant to accompany her to Burma. This
woman appeared to be in normal condition
when she went on board the ship, but within
a few hours after sailing she fell upon the
floor writhing in convulsions. Mrs. Judson
labored over her, trying by every means in
her power to restore her, but all efforts failed
and after a few gasps she died.

The shock of the sudden death, together
with the violent exertion to save the woman's
life, threw Mrs. Judson into such an excru-
ciating sickness that she was brought very
close to death herself. In their uncomfortable

[73]

Ann of Ava

quarters on shipboard the experience was the
heaviest hardship they had yet borne. The
ship Georgianna was a " crazy " old craft,
dirty, miserable, and unseaworthy. There
was no stateroom for the two passengers
except such as was made by canvas protec-
tion on deck. The wind was blustering and
the waves choppy. The boat tossed inces-
santly, its motion bringing agonizing pain to
the sufferer on deck.

No physician and no medicines were at
hand to relieve her distress. The captain
was the only other person on board who could
speak English, as the Georgianna was a Por-
tuguese ship. Mr. Judson was doctor, nurse,
and companion. As he sat by the prostrate
form of his wife, helpless to mitigate her
pain, he realized something of the agony of
spirit which Samuel Newell endured as he
watched, unfriended and alone, by the death-
bed of Harriet in the Isle of France. Ap-
parently, there was but one way to save the
life of Ann Judson, and that way seemed
to be the last and greatest of impossibilities.
If the tossing boat could be quiet for one
hour relief might come which would lead to
[74]

Ann of Ava

recovery. Then it was that God's watchful
care over his own was beautifully manifested,
just as Harriet Newell trustfully said: " He
who takes care of the ravens will not for-
sake his own children in the hour of their
affliction."

The captain came on deck to inform his
passengers that they had failed to make the
Nicobar Island, where it was intended to
take on a cargo of coconuts, and that they
were in imminent danger of being driven
upon the Andaman Islands. To escape this
fate he would have to steer his vessel through
a narrow strait between two of the islands,
where he had never been before and which
was reputed to be a region of great terror
for men and ships. The coasts were said
to be inhabited by cannibals who would
promptly kill and eat every one on board
if they got a chance. Moreover, the channel
was beset with perilous, black rocks as deadly
to passing ships as great icebergs should they
happen to collide.

With these gruesome possibilities ahead,
the ship entered the channel, when suddenly
the wind ceased and the water became per-

[75]

Ann of Ava

fectly calm! The islands cut off the wind so
completely that the narrow passage was like
a sheltered haven, and the moving vessel al-
most as quiet as a house on land. The still-
ness brought immediate relief to Mrs. Judson,
and to her husband the first shining hope of
her recovery. Rocks and cannibals were soon
left behind and the ship, under more favor-
able winds, sailed on toward port.

But what a port! It was the 13th day of
July when the Georgianna entered the harbor
of Rangoon, Burma. Dismal, doleful, for-
bidding, funereal — all the unpleasant adjec-
tives in the dictionary could hardly do jus-
tice to the city of Rangoon in 1813, especially
as it was seen from approaching vessels.
Reaching away from the water's edge was a
vast, flat swamp, " a sludgy, squdgy creek,"
with tumble-down bamboo huts raised on
poles above the ground. Everything in sight
was dilapidated, neglected, filthy. For the
first time in their travels Mr. and ]Mrs. Jud-
son saw before them a country in its primi-
tive, barbaric condition, untouched by Euro-
pean civilization. The prospect sent a stab
of terror into their souls.
[•76]

Rangoon River Front

Ann of Ava

Toward evening JNIr. Judson went on shore
to reconnoiter, but came back to the ship
more cast down than his wife had ever seen
him. The night of their arrival in Rangoon
marked the bhiest experience of all their
lives, so they both agreed and recorded in
their diaries and letters. Afterwards they
thought that they ought to have rejoiced that
first night to find themselves actually at the
haven of their long desire, a thoroughly
heathen country, and moreover, one which did
not promptly dismiss them from its shores.
But at the time, so heavy was the burden of
loneliness and homesickness that their one
wish was for speedy death to remove them
from the hardships of earth into the freedom
of heaven. Sharing each other's distress the
husband and wife prayed together and com-
mitted themselves wholly to the care of their
watchful God, and by and by peace came
to their troubled spirits. " Although I have
cast them far off among the heathen, and al-
though I have scattered them among the
countries, yet will I be to them as a little
sanctuary in the countries where they shall
come."

[77]

Ann of Ava

The next morning preparations were made
to go on shore to the city they must learn
to call home. Mrs. Judson was not able to
walk, as she had not yet left her bed for
so long as half an hour. There was no mean^
of conveyance except a horse which of course
she could not ride. Some one's ingenuity
found a way at last and she was carried off
the ship in an armchair borne by means of
bamboo poles on the shoulders of four
natives.

Into the miserable, dirty town, with its
bamboo and teak houses and its muddy
creeks, the coolies carried their precious bur-
den, until, in a shady spot, they halted and
set down the chair. Instantly, crowds of
Burmans flocked around to gaze at the
strange foreign woman. Englishmen were
no novelty in the streets of this Burmese sea-
port, but Englishwomen were seldom seen
and were objects of undisguised curiosity.
Involuntarily, JNIrs. Judson's head drooped
with sickness and weakness, and thus some
native women ventured near enough to peer
under her bonnet into the pale, lovely face.
To their wide-eyed scrutiny she returned a
[78]

Ann of Ava

friendly smile, to which they responded with
a loud laugh. As the coolies lifted the chair
to proceed, the onlookers gave a lusty shout
which seemed to amuse the foreigners. On
they went to the Rangoon custom-house,
which was a small, open shed, in which, upon
mats on the ground, sat several Burmese
custom officials. Mr. Judson was submitted
to a thorough search, after which request was
made that a Burmese woman be allowed to
search Mrs. Judson, to which she obligingly
agreed. This ordeal over, the little party
moved on to the mission house, outside the city
gates, built by the English Baptists, which
was to be home for the American missionaries.
Where now are the green hills and sunny,
white homesteads of New England? Are
they but phantoms of memory? And where,
yes, where is that blithe, beautiful girl, with
her rosy cheeks and brown curls, who went
gaily forth to the new academy in Bradford,
her thoughts filled with the good times in
which she was always the merry leader? Is
she, too, a phantom of the past? Or has
Nancy Hasseltine found her real self in the
heroic, sacrificial life of Ann Judson?

[79]

VIII

BY THE OLD RANGOON
PAGODA "

RANGOON was a city of importance
in the Burmese empire despite its
dilapidated appearance. Besides a
population of many thousand, it was the gov-
ernment city of an extensive province, ruled
by a viceroy who was a high official in the
kingdom. Two miles north of the city rose
one of the landmarks of Burma, the great
Rangoon Pagoda, or Golden Temple of
Buddha, visible for twenty miles round
about. It was a tall, glittering structure,
grotesque in its golden ornamentations and
colossal in its proportions. At the season of
the great feast of Gotama or Buddha, multi-
tudes of people came in boats on the river
from long distances to worship and present
offerings at the famous pagoda which was
supposed to contain a relic of Buddha. Thus
Rangoon was honored, perhaps second to
Ava, the royal city, for its government seat
and its sacred shrine. In years to come it
[80]

The Golden Pagoda

Ann of Ava

was destined to rank among the first seaports
of the Orient, because of its commanding
location upon a branch of the great Irawadi
river. Yet, in 1813, for all its governmental
prestige, for all its pretentious pagoda, it
was still a miserable, dirty, insanitary town,
with its glorious possibilities of navigation
and vegetation unutilized, and even im-
imagined.

One day Ann Judson climbed the flight
of steps leading to the pagoda and was al-
lowed to walk about the platform. The scene
appeared to her like fairyland run wild. The
enchanted castles and ruined abbej^s which
haunted the images of story-books she had
read seemed to come to life before her eyes.
Fantastic images of Buddha, of angels and
demons, elephants and lions, added a savor
of barbaric picturesqueness.

Sometimes, as IMrs. Judson looked up at
the towering structure from the distance of
her own home outside the city gates, the
polished spire among the trees suggested the
white steeples of Xew England. Then
would come a swift realization of the awful
distance, not only in miles, but much more

[81]

Ann of Ava

in character, between the New England
church and the Burmese pagoda. Just as
the meeting-house was the symbol of the
simple, straightforward life of the early
American settlers, so this grotesque fane was
the symbol of the falsehood and degradation
of the inhabitants of the ancient East.

In the streets and outskirts of Rangoon the
two American residents found sufficient evi-
dence of the wretched condition of the Bur-
mese people. Many sick and diseased folk
begged daily their few grains of rice and
crept back to their only habitation, a piece
of cloth stretched on four bamboos under-
neath a shade-tree. Others bowed under a
heavy yoke of toil, earning thereby but a
meager pittance the larger part of which
was snatched away by a greedy government.
It was part of the government system to pay
no fixed salaries to its officers but to expect
them to extort by taxation from the people
the means for a luxurious living. The vice-
roy, or governor of a province, was popularly
known as an " Eater," since his function
seemed to be to devour the possessions of his
subjects. Each petty officer divided liis spoil
[82]

Ann of Ava

with the viceroy, and he in turn with the king,
whose revenues were unfailing.

The king's word was absokite law in
Burma, so that even a high official might be
beheaded at a moment's notice. At one time
an officer of the highest rank was seized by
the public executioner and laid on the ground
by the side of the road with a heavy weight
upon his chest and the meridian sun blazing
relentlessly upon him. After the king's wrath
was thus appeased the man was restored to
his former high position. The only way to
escape punishment, whether innocent or
guilty, was to pay large bribes to the viceroy.
Thus everj^body was afraid of everybody else,
and consequently nobody told the truth.
" We cannot live without telling lies," they
said.

Robberies were outrageously daring and
frequent, especially in times of famine, when
almost every night houses were broken into
and thefts or murders committed. The mis-
sion house, where the Judsons lived, was par-
ticularly exposed to attacks of robbers and
wild beasts because of its location outside the
city walls. Moreover, in the vicinity was the

[83]

Ann of Ava

place of public execution and of deposit for
the refuse of the city. It was a gruesome
locality, but the immediate surroundings of
the house were unexpectedly pleasant. Be-
longing to the property was an enclosed gar-
den abounding in delicious fruits, such as
oranges, bananas, guavas, pineapples, and the
jack-fruit and bread-fruit. The house itself
was built of teak-wood and, though left in
an unfinished style inside, was large and
fairly convenient.

It was on a July morning in 1813 when
the young American missionary walked be-
side the impromptu conveyance which carried
his sick wife from the ship Georgianna to the
mission house outside the gates of Rangoon.
There was but one other missionary in Burma
at the time, Felix Carey, son of the great
William Carey of Serampore. He and his
family occupied the Rangoon mission prop-
erty, though during the summer when the
Judsons arrived he was away in Ava on
business for the king. Mrs. Carey was a
native of Rangoon and she, with her two
children, received the new missionaries into
her home. She could speak but little English,
[84]

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A Burmese House

Ann of Ava

so friendly conversation did not brighten their
first days in a strange land. Moreover, it
was a difficult task for an Eastern woman to
create the home comforts for a Western
woman trained to such a different mode of
life. To Mrs. Judson, accustomed to the
savory cooking of New England, the Bur-
mese food was a daily trial. Bread and but-
ter and potatoes were constantly missed, and
the rice and milk and curried fowl which
formed the staple diet were always unsatisfy-
ing. Yet, " instead of mourning that we have
no more of the comforts of life, we have great
reason to be thankful that we have so many,"
wrote the undaunted Ann. Considering the
handicaps of food, climate, and discomforts,
INIrs. Judson recovered her health with sur-
prising rapidity, and never at any time did
the man or woman become shaken in their
firm intention to remain in heathen Burma.
As Mr. Judson said, " we soon began to find
that it was in our hearts to live and die with
the Burmans." Through the many vicissi-
tudes of the past year and a half they had
learned the lesson that God is always on the
side of those who do their duty, and that his

[85]

Ann of Ava

help is mightier than any human aid or
human need.

Immediately upon settling in their new
home, Mr. and ]\Irs. Judson began to study
the Burmese language, which, as a study, was
worse than higher mathematics, Sanskrit, and
Hebrew put together. To learn a dead lan-
guage like Greek or Latin, or a living lan-
guage like French or German, as it is taught
in school or college to-day, is like kinder-
garten play compared with mastering a liv-
ing, Oriental language, mastering it until it
is as familiar as your native speech. ^lore-
over, to attempt, as the Judsons did, to ac-
quire a language without an adequate dic-
tionary or grammar or even a teacher who
understands a word of your own speech, and
with dried palm leaves covered with obscure
scratches your only text-book, such a task
might well be reckoned among the twelve
labors of Hercules. After studying Burmese
for more than a year, INIr. Judson still insisted
that if he had his choice of being examined
in a Burmese book or in a book in the French
language which he had studied for about two
months, he would without the least hesitation
[86]

Ann of Ava

choose the French. So much for the intricacy
of the Burmese language!

When the native teacher first came to the
mission house he rebelled against accepting
the missionary's wife as a pupil. In his
country a teacher's skill was considered
wasted if bestowed upon such an inferior
being as woman. But when he saw that the
husband was as eager to have his wife taught
as himself, the teacher changed his tactics.
From seven in the morning until ten at night
the two determined students applied them-
selves to their task, going to bed as tired as
they had ever been in all their lives.

Every day and all day they studied and
studied, their only recreation being a walk
in the garden or adjoining village, their
only society found in each other. No word
from home had yet reached them and they
had been absent a year and a half. As fam-
ished as the starving people they saw about
them were they when at last, a whole year
later, — two years and a half after leaving
America^ — the first home letter was laid in
their hands! Mrs. Judson was the only woman
in the Burmese empire who could speak Eng-

[87]

Ann of Ava

lish, and of course there were no Christians
outside the mission household in the entire
country of perhaps eight milHon people. This
was the situation in which the woman found
herself who, only a few years before, had been
the merrymaker of Bradford, the girl whose
beauty and cleverness were bywords in the
valley of the Merrimac. " Exposed to rob-
bers by night and invaders by day," wrote
this same girl in her journal, dated Rangoon,
August 8, 1813, " yet we both unite in saying
we never were happier, never more contented
in any situation, than the present. We feel
that this is the post to which God hath ap-
pointed us; that we are in the path of duty;
and in a situation, which, of all others, pre-
sents the most extensive field of usefulness."

On the 19th of September, 1813, the two
young missionaries, man and wife, partook
together of the sacrament of the Lord's
Supper, just as Samuel and Harriet Newell
had united in the sacred service in the Isle
of France the Sabbath before Harriet's death.
Thus, in the mission house of Rangoon, with
two lonely foreigners as participants, was
born the Christian Church of Burma which
[88]

Ann of Ava

to-day, a hundred years later, numbers sixty-
five thousand people in its membership and
over nine hundred church organizations.

Among her early experiences in Rangoon
one of the most entertaining befell Mrs. Jud-
son on the day she made her first call upon
the wife of the viceroy, introduced by a
French lady who lived in the city and was a
frequent visitor at the government house.
When the two guests arrived lier highness
had not yet arisen and they must await her
pleasure. JNIeantime, the secondary wives of
the viceroy diverted and amused them. They
gathered like so many children around the
two foreigners, examining their clothes, try-
ing on their gloves and bonnets and mani-
festing the most absurd curiosity.

At last the vice-reine appeared clad in rich
Burmese attire and smoking a long, silver
pipe. As she entered the room the other
wives retreated to a respectful distance and
crouched on the floor, not daring to speak
unless addressed. The honored first wife
went forward to greet her guests and looked
interestedly into the face of the beautiful
stranger, the wife of the American teacher.

[89]

Ann of Ava

Graciously she took her by the hand and
led her to a seat upon the mat where she sat
herself. One of her women in waiting pre-
sented a bunch of flowers and the vice-reine
removed several blossoms and ornamented
Mrs. Judson's bonnet. She then plied her
with many questions, especially concerning
herself and her husband. Was she the first
wife, meaning was she the highest among the
many wives she supposed Mr. Judson pos-
sessed as did her husband? Did they intend
remaining long in the country?

As they talked, the viceroy himself made
a pompous entry into the room. ^Irs. Jud-
son literally trembled as she saw the huge,
savage-looking man, with his long, heavy
robe and his spear large enough for Goliath
of Gath. This ferocious being was not only
the ruler of their city, but a man high in
favor at the proud court of Ava, a man
who had only to nod his head and his sub-
jects were pardoned or beheaded. Yet he
too greeted the American lady with surpris-
ing graciousness, and asked her if she would
drink some rum or wine. As the guests rose
to depart, the vice-reine again took Mrs.
[90]

Ann of Ava

Judson's hand, assuring her that she was
happy to see her and bidding her come every
day. She then escorted her visitors to the
door, where they made their salaams and
went away, the ordeal of a state visit in
Burma over for that time. Mrs. Judson had
decided to make this call hoping thereby to
gain a friendly acquaintance with the vice-
reine, which, in case of trouble with the Bur-
mans, would admit her to the wife when Mr.
Judson might be refused access to so august
a personage as the viceroy himself. It re-
mains to be seen how the charm of per-
sonality which was Mrs. Judson's heritage
from girlhood won for her and her husband
marvelous favors from the haughty nobility
of Burma.

As a further precaution against danger in
those unsettled times, Mr. and Mrs. Judson
concluded, after six months' residence in the
outskirts, to move into a house within the
city wall. By so doing they would not only
escape unnecessary peril of robbers, but would
come in closer contact with the people. Only
seven days after they left the mission house
a band of fifteen or twenty desperate men,

[91]

Ann of Ava

armed with knives, spears, and guns, attacked
a house in the neighborhood, stabbed the
owner, and departed with everything upon
which they could lay their hands. The vice-
roy was so enraged at this bold plunder that
he dispatched a chief officer with three hun-
dred men to run down the thieves, with the
result that seven robbers were put to death
in most brutal fashion at the place of public
execution.

Two months after this consternation spread
through the city, another alarming event
made the missionaries realize the uncertainty
of existence in a heathen city. On a Sunday
morning in March they walked out to the
mission house to spend the day in quiet wor-
ship, as was their weekly habit. As they
reached the house, a servant met them with
the news that a fire was raging near the town.
They hurried to the spot and found several
houses burning briskly and the flames travel-
ing in straight course toward the city. No
efforts whatsoever were made to extinguish
the fire, so there was reason to suppose the
whole town would be consumed. They has-
tened to the gates in order to enter the city
[92]

Ann of Ava

and return to their house in time to remove
their belongings, but lo, the gates were tightly
closed! The poor, terrified people had shut
the gates imagining, like foolish children, that
they could thus shut out the flames, even
though gates and walls were made wholly of
wood. Mr. and Mrs. Judson waited per-
sistently until at last the gates were opened,
and they hurried home to gather up their pos-
sessions and transfer them swiftly to the
mission house beyond the zone of danger. All
day the fire burned and burned until walls,
gates, and houses innumerable were destroyed,
and thousands of families were shelterless.

Thus, fire and robbers and dangers un-
dreamed surrounded the two missionaries.
But they went about the day's work undis-
mayed. The golden shrine of Buddha, the
old Rangoon pagoda, looked indifferently
down upon the confused, distressed life of
the people in the city, a silent witness of the
powerlessness of Buddhism to save its fol-
lowers. In the hearts of the two strangers
in their midst burned the message of a God
of love who alone could redeem the people of
Burma from bondage.

[93]

IX
CHILDREN'S VOICES

IT was a January day in 1815, and prep-
arations for departure were being made
in the Judson household in Rangoon.
Who could be going away, and where? Was
it possible that they were both leaving Burma,
having given up the mission as a hopeless
task? That did not seem likely, and more-
over the house was in its usual condition, its
furnishings undisturbed. One small trunk
stood ready for removal to the ship, and
presently Mrs. Judson came in dressed for a
journey. Evidently she was the traveler, and
her husband was to be left behind. Never
since their marriage had they been parted for
any length of time, and the peculiar circum-
stances of their isolated life had made them
unusually dependent upon each other. Now,
however, they must face a separation of two
or three months at least, and the prospect
was doleful indeed.

Mrs. Judson was about to sail for Madras
to consult a physician, as her health was
[94]

Ann of Ava

breaking down under the climate and priva-
tions of Burma, and no medical help was
available there. She had refused to permit
her husband to accompany her, as the new mis-
sion would suffer too much from the absence
of them both. They were just beginning to
make themselves understood in the Burmese
language, and a few people were turning a
listening ear to the story of a God who cared,
though they but dimly comprehended the
meaning of the strangely beautiful message.
These first signs of a harvest to come were
too precious to neglect, and the language
must be all the more arduously studied in
order to make the story plain to the bewil-
dered people.

When it was decided that Mrs. Judson
must go to JMadras, she and her husband
ventured one day into the presence of the
viceroy of Rangoon with an unusual petition.
They offered a small present, as was custom-
ary in Burma when seeking a favor from
those in authority. The viceroy looked at
their gift and inquired their business, where-
upon Mr. Judson made bold to ask if a
Burmese woman might be allowed to travel

[96]

Ann of Ava

with Mrs. Judson across the Bay of Bengal
to INIadras. This was indeed an extraordi-
nary request, for did not the Burmese law
prohibit the departure of a native woman
from the country? Yet, marvelous to relate,
the viceroy turned instantly to his writer and
bade him make out an official, order, giving
the desired permit and eliminating all ex-
pense. It may be that something of the
indomitable courage shining in the eyes of
the frail woman before him appealed to the
heart of the arrogant Burmese ruler and
moved him to show such amazing condescen-
sion. At any rate the husband and wife,
as they went away from the government
house, felt humbly grateful to God for this
encouragement at the outset of the journey.

The second dread was the thought of re-
peating that voyage across the Bay of Bengal
which in the summer of 1813 had brought
such unforgetable distress. Here, again,
difficulties vanished, thanks to the gallant
thoughtfulness of the ship's captain. Not
only did he provide every necessity for his in-
valid passenger, but at the end of the voyage
refused to accept payment for her passage.
[96]

Ann of Ava

Kindnesses on every side smoothed the
way for the traveler, and none the less in
Madras, where Ann Judson was well re-
membered. It was nearly two years since
she first came to Madras, there to be con-
fronted with the horrible possibility of a
home in Burma, that countr}'^ of which she
said she had heard such " frightful accounts."
Though the prospect sent a shiver to her soul
she raised no protest, because, as people said
of her, her loyal resolve was to go anywhere
for Christ. Such steadfastness is not lightly
forgotten. When she came again to Madras
her old friends received her into their homes
and many delighted to do her honor. After
a stay of six weeks she prepared to return
to Burma, her health having perceptibly im-
proved. Before leaving she sent a fee of
seventy rupees to the physician who had at-
tended her, which amount he promptly re-
turned with the message that he was happy
if he had been serviceable to her.

To Rangoon again, and how eager is the
anticipation compared with the dreary fore-
bodings of the first voyage to Burma! But
who is this new, small passenger who goes

[97]

Ann of Ava

with Mrs. Judson on board the vessel in
Madras roads? A little girl stands by her
side on the ship's deck and waves good-by to
the friends on shore. Is she really going
home with JNIrs. Judson, and who can she be?
The mystery is easily solved if you will go
back and meet some of Mrs. Judson's friends
in JMadras. During her two visits to the city
she had experienced the kindness lavished
upon missionaries by a young man named
Von Someren, son of a major in the Dutch
army. Often he would go down to the ships
lying in Madras roads and insist upon claim-
ing the missionaries who arrived as his guests.
He would entertain them in his spacious
house, advise' them in their business negotia-
tions, and speed them on their way up coun-
try or across seas. In his home lived three
orphan children, small cousins who had been
left to his guardianship after the death of
their parents. The youngest, Emily Von
Someren, became very dear to Mrs. Judson
and when she thought of returning to Burma
she longed to take the little girl with her.
One day she made known her desire to INIr.
Von Someren, and willingly he entrusted his
198]

Ann of Ava

ward, then seven years old, to the care of
the woman he admired so deeply. Thus it
came about that a small companion sailed
back to Burma with IVIrs. Judson.

JMeanwhile, over in Rangoon a young man
was working unceasingly, that he might in
some measure forget the loneliness of his de-
serted home. From early morning until late
evening he gave himself to language-study,
his only respite being a conversation with the
natives, which was really study in another
form. There was scarcely a single person in the
Burmese empire with whom he could talk
sympathetically as friend to friend, and with
whom he could enter into the deeper fellow-
ship of prayer. His loneliness was enormous,
and accentuated by contrast the richness of
his companionship with the wife who shared
so completely his interests and his great ab-
sorbing purpose. When her ship should sail
into the harbor, the joy of living would come
again into his heart.

Thus, when the spring days returned, new
signs of life and activity returned also to the
mission house in Rangoon. A woman's step,
buoyant with the rebound of health, was

[99]

Ann of Ava

heard about the house and tones of a childish
voice reached the open, veranda-like room
where Mr. Judson and his teacher sat at
study. The dry old Burmese language be-
came newly vitalized by the accompaniment of
these homelike sounds. Mrs. Judson had long
ago taken upon herself the entire management
of the household, that her husband might be
left free for uninterrupted study. Her own
lessons thus became interspersed with fre-
quent digressions into household affairs, but
these very digressions proved in the end her
quickest means of acquiring a vocabulary.
Often in her contact with the servants she
would be obliged to talk Burmese all day.
The small Emily picked up Burmese words
and phrases day by day, until she too could
speak the language and sing the songs. Al-
though she lived in the country but six years,
yet to the end of her life she could speak
and write Burmese. One hymn which she
frequently sang in after life always brought
the tears to her eyes, though she could never
tell why.

So those busy days of spring and summer
led on to an autumn of surpassing happiness.
[100]

Ann of Ava

As a forerunner of the great joy before them,
good news came traveling across the seas
from America to bring thanksgiving into the
little household in Rangoon. At last, after
three years of waiting, came the assurance
that the Baptist churches of America had
accepted Mr. and ]Mrs. Judson as their first
missionaries and assumed responsibility for
their support. A burden also was lifted from
the English missionaries at Serampore, who
all this time had been supplying funds for
the two Americans, according to their gen-
erous promise, but out of meager resources.
Not in vain had Luther Rice sailed back
to his native land to tell the story of what
his eyes had seen in the needy countries of
the Orient. In INIay, 1814, a second history-
making assembly had been held in the United
States similar to the eventful gathering in
Bradford in June, 1810. From JNIassachu-
setts to Georgia the Baptist ministers had
rallied their forces in conference at Philadel-
phia and had there organized the second for-
eign missionary society of America, known
originally as the Triennial Convention, later
as the American Baptist Foreign Missionary

[101]

Ann of Ava

Society. The new mission board not only
guaranteed support for jNIr. and JMrs. Jud-
son, but held out the hope that some glad
day other missionaries would be sent to labor
beside them. Perhaps in some wonderful
future the Baptist denomination of America
might accept from the hands of its pioneer
missionaries the whole country of Burma to
develop for the great King, just as formerly
the governments of Europe received from the
claims of their pioneer discoverers whole terri-
tories in North America to develop for the
sovereigns at whose will they had gone across
the Atlantic.

There in the frontier home in Rangoon
two lonely settlers were comforted by the
knowledge that they were not forgotten by
Christians in America. This glad sense of
relief prepared the way for the blessing which
came into their home on the 11th day of
September, when a little son was born, the
only child of foreign parents in the city of
Rangoon. Although no doctor or nurse could
be secured for the young mother, her hus-
band ministering to all her needs, yet two
weeks' time found her writing home, " Since
[102]

Ann of Ava

the birth of our Httle son my health has been
much better than for two years before. I
feel now almost in a new state of existence.
Our hands are full, and though our prospects
in regard to the immediate conversion of the
Burmans are dark, yet our trust in God is
strong." In that same letter, after wishing
that her mother might see her sprightly little
boy, she went on to say, " We hope his life
may be preserved and his heart sanctified,
that he may become a missionary among the
Burmans."

Even his name embodied his parents' hopes
for his manhood, for he was named in mem-
ory of a dauntless pioneer missionary in the
New England colonies, Roger Williams.
Into every day of that autumn and winter
the baby Roger, by his sunny presence,
brought something of the spell and brightness
of Christmas. He was the plaything, pet,
and cherished companion of his busy parents,
and, baby that he was, he seemed to feel in
his little heart a return of the affection lav-
ished upon him. Often he would lie for hours
on a mat by Mr. Judson's study table, con-
tent if only he could see his father's face. If

[103]

Ann of Ava

his mother or father passed his cradle without
taking him up his bhie eyes would follow
them wistfully to the door, and fill with tears,
so that, constrained by the sadness of that
little face, they would have to turn back to
the cradle. When study hours were over they
hastened to find Roger to take him into the
garden for exercise and for their own joy-
ous recreation. There was no such specter
as loneliness existent when the baby was their
companion.

Thus the winter days sped happily by, but
when spring came again anxiety crept grad-
ually into the mother's heart. Every night
a touch of fever flushed the little body, but
since the daytime found him apparently
healthy and active, they hoped the fever
would disappear with that bugbear of baby-
hood, teething. One morning, after his
mother had taken him from liis cradle, he
coughed violently for half an hour. A high
fever followed and continued through the day,
though giving place on the morrow to re-
freshing sleep. The third day the cough and
fever returned and a Portuguese priest, the
only person of medical pretensions in the
[104f]

Ann of Ava

place, was summoned. He prescribed some
simple remedies, but they brought no relief
to the strange distress in the baby's throat,
which caused such hard breathing it could be
heard some distance away. During the fourth
night the mother sat beside her sick child
until two o'clock, when she was so fatigued
that the father relieved her watch. He gave
the little fellow a drink of milk which he took
with eagerness and then fell asleep in his
cradle. For half an hour he slept quietly,
when, without a struggle, his breathing ceased
and the baby Roger was gone.

In the afternoon of that same day a pro-
cession of forty or fifty Burmese and Portu-
guese followed the heart-broken parents to a
little grave in an enclosure of mango trees
in the garden. All who knew the " little
white child," as the vice-reine called him,
strove to express their sympathy. A few
days later her highness came with all the
pomp of her high position to proffer con-
dolences. If the degree of her sympathy was
proportioned to the size of her retinue, it was
large indeed, for two hundred officers and
attendants followed in her train. When the

[105]

Ann of Ava

sad-faced mother came to greet her guest, the
vice-reine smote her breast, saj^ing, " Why did
you not send me word that I might have
come to the funeral?" Mrs. Judson replied
that she did not think of anj^thing at the time,
so great was her distress. Whereupon the
Burmese noblewoman tried sincerely to com-
fort a sister woman in grief, bidding her not
to weep, turning also to Mr. Judson and
cautioning him lest the sorrow destroy his
health, which all too evidently was on the
decline. Not forgetting her duties as hostess,
Mrs. Judson served her guest with tea, sweet-
meats, and cake, which seemed to give her
pleasure. All the while she was longing for
the chance to serve the deep life needs of the
Burmese vice-reine who, in all her visits to
the government house, had manifested such a
friendly spirit, such a cordial welcome to-
ward the wife of the American teacher. If
only she could return her kindness by leading
her to accept the greatest of all gifts, even
God's Christmas Gift to his human children!
One lovely spring day, a short time after
the vice-reine's call at the mission house, a
gracious invitation proceeded from her high-
[106]

Ann of Ava

ness to the American family in Rangoon.
Would they become her guests on a trip into
the country to benefit their health and to
" cool their minds," as she expressed it? They
readily consented and presently a tall ele-
phant with a howdah upon his back, appeared
at the gate of the mission house for their
conveyance. A long, imposing procession
formed and wended its way toward the woods.
Thirty men, with spears and guns in their
hands and red caps on their heads, led the
march. Directly behind them walked a mon-
strous elephant caparisoned with a gilt how-
dah, in which sat the tall, graceful figure of
the vice-reine, clad in red and white silk. In
the place of honor behind her ladyship rode
the American guests followed by three or
foin* elephants carrying the vice-reine's son
and government officers. At the rear came
a lordly retinue, two or three hundred strong,
the men and women retainers of the govern-
ment house.

Through the woods the elephants trudged
with soft, " squdgy " tread, breaking down,
at the command of their drivers, the small
trees which obstructed progress. In the midst

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of a beautiful garden, luxuriant with wild,
tropical growth, the procession halted, and
under a wide-reaching banyan tree mats were
spread for hostess and guests. Again the
vice-reine sought by every means to divert
and entertain her guests. She gathered fruit
and pared it, plucked flowers and knotted
them together, and presented these friendly
tokens with her own hands as a mark of ex-
treme favor. At dinner her cloth was laid
beside that of her guests while she freely
dispensed the bounty prepared.

In the evening the procession returned to
the city, and a tall elephant stopped before
the mission house for its riders to dismount.
Since the death of little Roger, homecom-
ing had lost its keen zest, its poignant ex-
pectancy. Yet out in the fragrant garden
was a sheltered spot which bound their
hearts more strongly than ever to the land
of their adoption. There, underneath the
mango trees, the mother often sat and wept
by the grave of her first-born child. But
even as the tears fell she wrote to a friend
at home: "God is the same when he afflicts
as when he is merciful; just as worthy of
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Ann of Ava

our entire trust and confidence now as when
he entrusted us with the precious little gift."

Meanwhile, the little Dutch girl, Emily,
crept all the more closely into the hearts of
her adopted parents in their lonely life in
Rangoon.

[109]

X

ANN'S DILEMMA

CHRISTMAS day in a country where
there is no Christmas! What a
mockery of the jovial old saint who
drives his reindeers down the chimneys of chil-
dren's fancies! Has he access only to the
hearts and homes of children of the West?
Oh, Christmas, Christmas, with your radiant
spell cast upon the winter days, where is the
sign of your presence in this Burmese city,
where the " temple bells are callin'," calling
to the worship of an "idol made of mud"?
In the great, golden pagoda, is there no jilace
for the worship of a little Child born in a
manger in Bethlehem?

In the mission house in Rangoon, Christ-
mas, in the year 1817, was celebrated by the
disturbing events of departure. Again the
little family group was to be broken by the
absence of one of its members on an uncer-
tain, coriipulsory journey. Before sunset,
Mr. Judson would have sailed away from
Rangoon, down the Irawadi river toward the
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sea, and then north along the coast to Chitta-
gong, a port of Arracan, belonging to the
dominions of the East India- Company. It
must be a momentous errand which would
draw Adoniram Judson away from Rangoon
at this critical stage in the development of
the mission.

No less a motive than the welfare of the
mission itself had impelled this curious jour-
ney into an unknown region. After four
years of preparatory work, the time had come
at last for a public proclamation of the gospel
which hitherto the missionaries had expressed
only by their daily lives, by private conversa-
tion, and recently by the circulation of two
tracts and the book of JVIatthew printed in
Burmese. The knotty language had become so
familiar to JNIr. Judson that he was now
ready to venture before a critical native audi-
ence. If, however, one Burmese Christian
could stand by his side and declare in his
native tongue to his o^vn countrymen the
beauty of the Christian religion, the appeal
would be a hundred times more powerful. As
yet there was no avowed disciple of the Lord
Christ among the natives in Rangoon, al-

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though a number had shown an awakening
interest. In the port of Chittagong were
said to be several converts, the remnant of an
abandoned English mission in that region.
It was likely that Mr. Judson could persuade
one of these native Christians, who spoke Bur-
mese, to return with him to Rangoon and assist
him in his task of public preaching. Thus,
when it was announced that a ship would
sail on December 25 from Rangoon to Chitta-
gong, to return in a few weeks, a unique
opportunity seemed to have presented itself.
Furthermore, a second purpose would be
accomplished by this sea voyage of about ten
days in each direction. Renewed vigor would
be imparted to Mr. Judson's worn-out body
and mind. For nearly two years he had suf-
fered acute pain in his eyes and head, caused
by close study of the puzzling Burmese char-
acters. For a period of four months he had
not been able to read a page in a Burmese
book, yet, during those very months, out of
the knowledge already stored in his brain, he
had compiled a grammar of the Burmese lan-
guage! Twenty years later this grammar
was published and pronounced by linguists
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Ann of Ava

to be a masterpiece in its brevity and com-
pleteness. Once before during his sickness
a sea voyage had been planned, but sudden,
surprising news from Calcutta prevented de-
parture. A new missionary and his wife had
just arrived from America and would pro-
ceed to Rangoon by the next boat. Mrs.
Judson would of course remain at home to
welcome the newcomers, and an unexpected
improvement in health detained Mr. Judson
also.

In October, 1816, Mr. and Mrs. Judson
had received into their home the first Ameri-
cans who had ever crossed their threshold.
Such eager inquiries about the homeland as
filled those first wonderful days when isola-
tion was exchanged for friendly companion-
ship! Mr. Hough, the new missionary,
brought a timely present from the mission-
aries at Serampore, — a printing-press, the
first to be seen in the Burmese empire. So it
came about, with Mr. Hough's knowledge of
printing and Mr. Judson's knowledge of
Burmese, that Christian publications were
issued by the hundreds and thousands in the
Burmese language. Thus it also came about

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Ann of Ava

that Mrs. Judson and the small Emily were
left in the midst of friends when IMr. Judson
sailed away to Chittagong, expecting to re-
turn in the space of three months at the
longest.

The New Year dawned, bringing with it
tasks new and old. On every Sunday some
twenty or thirty Burmese women gathered
regularly at the mission house to listen to
Mrs. Judson as she told them new, wonder-
ful stories of a God who truly loved his
human children. Sometimes their tongues
found ready questions, or else expressed an
intention to worship the true God and go
no more to the idol temple. But their under-
standing and conviction were yet to be tested.

From the government house came unfail-
ing signs of good-will toward the American
residents. Now and then an elephant ap-
peared before the gate to convey them on
excursions with the viceroy's family. • Her
highness, the vice-reine, showed unmistakable
affection for Mrs. Judson, with whom she
had several times permitted friendly conver-
sation upon the subject of religion. From
her hand also she had accepted the Gospel
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Ann of Ava

of Matthew, and the tract and catechism
recently printed, even commanding that one
of her daughters be taught to memorize the
catechism that Mrs. Judson had written. But
no further indication did she give of belief
in the new religion, though Mrs. Judson
watched eagerly for every token of deepen-
ing interest.

The last of January the coming of a vis-
itor brought surprise and joy to the mission
household. About a year before, when Mr.
Judson was sitting with his teacher in his
veranda-like room, a man of very respectable
appearance, attended by a servant, had
come up the steps and sat down before him.
After a few preliminaries the stranger asked
abruptly, " How long time will it take me
to learn the religion of Jesus? " Mr. Judson
replied and then proceeded to ask him how
he had heard about Jesus. The man an-
swered that he had seen two little books. Mr.
Judson then handed him the tract and cate-
chism, both of which he recognized instantly
and read sentences here and there, remarking
to his servant, *' This is the true God, this is
the right way." " More of this sort of writ-

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Ann of Ava

ing," was his repeated request, to which Mr.
Judson responded that he was even then
translating a larger book which would be
ready in two or three months. " But," inter-
posed the man, " have you not a little of
that book done which you will graciously give
me now? " Mr. Judson folded a few pages
of his unfinished manuscript and gave him the
first five chapters of the book of Matthew.
Immediately, his desire gratified, the man
rose and went away.

For a year he had not returned, though
Mr. Judson heard through a friend that he
was reading his books " all the day " and
showing them to every one who called upon
him. He had been appointed governor of a
group of villages in another region and came
but seldom to Rangoon. Evidently upon his
first opportunity he had resorted to the mis-
sion house. In course of their conversation
Mrs. Judson asked him if he had become a
disciple of Jesus Christ. " I have not yet,"
he replied, " but I am thinking and reading
in order to become one. I cannot yet destroy
my old mind. . . . Tell the great teacher
when he returns that I wish to see him,
[116]

The Queen's Monastery

Ann of Ava

though I am not a disciple of Christ." Hav-
ing requested and obtained the remaining
portion of the Gospel of Matthew and a
supply of catechisms and tracts, he and liis
attendants went away.

Thus it was that encouraging signs gave
zest to the activities of the mission, and Mrs.
Judson's hope quickened in expectation of
her husband's return. Any day, now, his ship
was due in port, for the time limit of three
months had nearly expired. Mrs. Judson
scanned the horizon for the first hazy lines
of a ship's mast. One day in INIarch a vessel
did indeed come creeping into the harbor,
after twelve days' passage from Chittagong,
but alas, it was not the boat in which Mr.
Judson had sailed, and it brought most
alarming news! Neither Mr. Judson nor
the ship on which he had left Rangoon had
been seen or heard of at Chittagong! This
stray report brought by a native craft would
not have been fully credited had it not been
confirmed by messages which Mrs. Judson
received at the same time from friends in
Bengal. Certain it was that her husband's
ship had not reached its destination. Could

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Ann of Ava

it be that the course had been changed and
the ship was j'^et safe in some unknown waters
or port? This was a possibility, but on the
other hand was the grim specter which fre-
quently loomed larger than a possibility, that
the ship on which Mr. Judson had sailed and
all on board were lost. Oh, to know the
truth, whatever the truth might be!

Into the midst of this agonizing suspense
came annoyances from an unexpected quar-
ter. An ugly-sounding order was received
one afternoon bidding Mr. Hough appear
at once at the court-house to " give an account
of himself." This gruff message w^as so to-
tally unlike any communication hitherto sent
by the government that bewilderment and
alarm spread quickly through the mission
household. ^Ir. Hough hastened to obey the
command, followed at a distance by a group
of frightened teachers, servants, and other
adherents of the mission. As it was late
when he reached the court-house he was
merely commanded to give security for his
presence early the next morning, when, as
they remarked with fiendish emphasis, " if
he did not tell all the truth relative to his
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Ann of Ava

situation in the country, they would write
with his heart's blood."

In such a predicament ^Irs. Judson would
ordinarily have appealed to the vice-reine,
but only a short time before, the friendly
viceroy and his family had been recalled from
Rangoon to Ava. His successor was but
slightly acquainted with the Judsons, and
moreover his family had been left behind in
the royal city. It was contrary to Burmese
etiquette for a woman to appear at court in
the absence of the vice-reine, consequently
Mrs. Judson's tactful intervention was by
custom prohibited. Mr. Hough could not
speak Burmese with sufficient ease to permit
him to appeal in person to the viceroy, so
there was no recourse but for him to return
on the morrow to the court session and to the
uncertain fate there in store.

For two days he was held at the court-
house and forced to answer, through an in-
terpreter, the most absurd questions, such as,
what were the names of his parents, and how
many suits of clothes did he possess, the an-
swers to which were recorded with utmost
formality. He was not even allowed recess

[119]

Ann of Ava

long enough to procure food, but was inces-
santly subjected to examination. On Sun-
day morning summons was again received
to present himself at court that the inquiry
might continue. Exasperated beyond endur-
ance, Mrs. Judson determined to discover
whether or not the viceroy was responsible
for these maneuvers, or whether the subordi-
nate officers were playing a shrewd game for
bribes. Accordingly, her teacher wrote a
petition addressed to the viceroy, stating their
grievances, including the order to appear at
court on their sacred day, and requesting that
" it might be the pleasure of his highness that
these molestations cease."

With fine disregard of Burmese custom
Mrs. Judson prepared to go herself to the
government house to intercede with the vice-
roy. Accompanied by Mr. Hough she en-
tered the outer court and fortunately caught
the eye of the viceroy as he sat in state sur-
rounded by the officers of his court. He
recognized her at once and with amazing
condescension bade her come in and make
known her request. Mrs. Judson handed
the petition to one of the secretaries, who was
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Ann of Ava

promptly ordered to read it. At its con-
clusion the viceroy inquired in a stern voice
of the very officer who had been most aggres-
sive in tormenting Mr. Hough, " Why the
examination of this foreign teacher had been
thus prolonged?" At the same time he gave
a written order that Mr. Hough should not
be disturbed upon his sacred day and that
further annoyance should cease. Thus the
petty officers were foiled of their purpose
by an act that they did not dream a woman
would dare even to attempt.

" Sweet are the uses of adversity " to a
brave spirit like Mrs. Judson, but " ugly and
venomous " was the form of its next ap-
proach. For the first time in the history of
Rangoon a furious epidemic of cholera in-
vaded the city, accelerated in its progress by
the hottest and driest weather of the year.
Only the coming of the rainy season would
be likely to check the deadly march of dis-
ease. From morning until night the death
drum beat its gruesome lament, reminding^
Mrs. Judson and her companions of their
imminent danger, but also of the unfailing:
watchfulness of their God. In very fact^

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Ann of Ava

throughout the long plague, not a person
within the mission enclosure was touched by
its ravages, though neighbors perished on
every side.

Added to the wail for the dead was the
mad din set up each night to expel the evil
spirits who, the natives believed, stalked per-
petually through the streets wantonly de-
stroying life. A cannon fired at the govern-
ment house gave the signal whereat every
Burman began to beat upon his house with a
club or anything that would make a noise.
The uproar was hideous, and only a very
deaf or stubborn spirit would have refused
to depart, yet the disease remained as viru-
lent as ever. To one anxious woman the
wail by day and by night was naught com-
pared with the low, mournful cry of her heart
for the return of her husband. Where in
this whole Eastern world could he be, and
when would he come again home?

When could he come? was the next ques-
tion to torture Mrs. Judson's mind. Already
rumors of war were adding to the confusion
of disease. England was said to be at enmity
with Burma and on the verge of bombarding
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Ann of Ava

the country. Was this the reason that no
ships from English ports had entered the
harbor in recent months? Did this account
for the stealthy departure, one by one, of the
boats anchored at Rangoon until but a single
lonely craft was left? That too would be off
to Bengal at the first opportunity, leaving the
missionaries stranded in Rangoon with every
kind of unnamed terror in prospect.

Mr. Hough believed it to be their duty to
escape while there was yet opportunity. ]\Irs.
Judson, on the other hand, was strongly
averse to leaving the one spot in all the world
where her husband knew she was to be found.
To remain in Rangoon even in loneliness, war,
and pestilence was her dominant desire and
her felt duty. Yet how could Mr. Judson
return to her in Burma if an embargo should
be laid upon English ships? But where, oh,
where could she find him in Bengal or the
vast country of India? Should she go or
should she stay? If she decided to go, she
was in dread of missing her husband for
months if not forever. If she decided to stay,
he might be cut off from reaching her, and
moreover her life would be seriously en-

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Ann of Ava

d angered. It was a dreadful dilemma, the
biggest and most puzzling she had ever en-
countered in all her career.

At last, discouragement and perplexity bat-
tered down her first resolve, and with a heavy
heart she made preparations to leave Ran-
goon. With the hope begotten of a great
love she planned definitely upon meeting her
husband in Bengal, and went so far as to
engage his Burmese teacher to go with her
that language study might be resumed. The
teacher's courage failed, however, and he broke
his engagement, fearing the embarrassment
of his position should war be declared be-
tween Burma and Great Britain.

On the 5th of July, the mission house was
left behind, while Mrs. Judson and Emily,
with IMr. and Mrs. Hough, went on board
the last remaining ship in the harbor. Even
yet Mrs. Judson was not convinced of the
wisdom of her decision. The old reluctance
grew and grew even as the ship receded
slowly and surely down the river toward the
sea. Nothing could reconcile her to this
enforced departure, but it was too late now to
retrace her course. She seemed to be the
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Ann of Ava

victim of adverse circumstances, but usually
her will was stronger than circumstances.
Why not now? What was the meaning of
this persistent set of her heart to return to
Rangoon, just as in the journeyings of the
Master his face was steadfastly set to go to
Jerusalem ?

The vessel was even now at the point where
the river meets the sea, when the course was
suddenly changed and directed toward the
nearest harbor. Unseaworthy conditions had
been discovered and the ship must be re-
loaded. Here was Mrs. Judson's one and
only chance for escape, and with determined
voice she announced her intention to return to
Rangoon. The captain agreed to send her
back in a boat and to forward her baggage
the next day. It was evening when Mrs.
Judson and her little companion, Emily, en-
tered the city and sought out the house of the
only Englishman left in Rangoon, where they
spent the night. The next morning they
went out to the mission house to the surprise
and joy of all the Burmans left on the prem-
ises. Alone with her little girl, among people
of an alien race, in a disturbed, isolated city,

[125]

Ann of Ava

Mrs. Judson wrote in her diary of July 14:
" I know I am surrounded by dangers on
every hand, and expect to feel much anxiety
and distress, but at present I am tranquil,
intend to make an effort to pursue my studies
as formerly and leave the event with God."

Within two days of the return to Ran-
goon, a long lost vessel sailed into the har-
bor, even the very ship on which Mr. Jud-
son had departed six months before! Mrs.
Judson hastened to the captain to hear the
news he brought of her husband. It was only
an unfinished tale he had to tell. The ship
had not been able to make its intended port,
Chittagong, and for three months had been
tossed about in the Bay of Bengal without
a haven. At last they had crept into Masuli-
patam, a port north of ^ladras on the coast
of India, where JMr. Judson had left the
ship to go to JNIadras, seeking speedy pas-
sage thence to Rangoon. Beyond this point
the captain could give no accoimt of his
whereabouts, but to know that he had escaped
shipwreck and was trying his best to return
home brought a great lift of expectancy to
Mrs. Judson's spirits and confirmed the wis-
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Ann of Ava

dom of her decision to go back to Rangoon.
This ship was the first to arrive from India
in four months, but the fact of its coming
indicated that war was not so imminent as
was supposed.

A few days later Mrs. Judson was sur-
prised by the return of Mr. and Mrs. Hough
to the mission house. The belated ship upon
which they had taken passage for Bengal was
to be detained in port for some weeks, and
their departure was deferred accordingly.
Mrs. Judson hoped and prayed for the com-
ing of her husband before they should go
away again, that she might not be under the
necessity, as she wrote, *' of living in this
dreadful country, and out here in the woods
without a friend or protector." Her daily
program of study was resumed and diligently
followed. "This," she wrote, "I find the
best method to avoid dejection; besides, my
conscience will not permit me to sit idly down
and yield to those desponding feelings in
which a Christian should not indulge."

Thus one day after another dragged by
until a week spent itself in enforced study
and anxious vigil. Each morning brought

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Ann of Ava

quickened hope and each night a fresh dis-
appointment. But on one eventful day early
in August, hope brightened into fulfilment
and disappointment lost itself in a transport
of joy. An English vessel had arrived at the
mouth of the river, and — news almost too
good to be true — Mr. Judson was on board!
To his wife, the reaction from five long
months of daily suspense was almost too much
to endure.

In the living-room of the mission house
the husband and wife sat and recounted their
experiences of the seven months of separa-
tion. Into her story of encouragement fol-
lowed by disaster he could easily read the
high courage and resourcefulness which had
actually saved the mission from ruin. Into
his narrative of fever, thirst, starvation, and
disappointed hopes she read the high trust
in God which had saved her husband from
despair, if not from death. And together
they faced the future, praying the old praj^er
of the first years in Rangoon: " God grant
that we may live and die among the Bur-
mans, though we never should do anything
else than smooth the way for others."
[128]

XI
THE EAST A-CALLIN' "

IN the year 1822 an English sailing ves-
sel was making its slow passage between
Calcutta and Liverpool by the old cir-
cuitous route around the Cape of Good Hope.
On board were a number of European pas-
sengers returning home after a more or less
prolonged stay in the East. One of the larger
cabins was occupied by three children and a
sweet-faced lady evidently not their mother.
The lady's brown eyes had a tired, patient
look as if she had endured uncommon griefs,
yet at the same time they shone with an un-
wonted fire as if proclaiming an experience
fraught with high adventure. Her complex-
ion bore that peculiar tan which seemed to
indicate long residence in the tropics.

Her manner and apj^earance awakened
something more than the curious interest of
her fellow travelers, something strangely akin
to reverence. During those days when she
was prostrated in her berth, not by seasick-
ness but by an old complaint, two young

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Ann of Ava

women of high social rank came frequently
to inquire for her and to read aloud such
portions of literature as she should select.
Often her choice was from the Bible to which
she added her own clear-voiced entreaty for
a life of self-denial and high service. Her
two visitors were seriously impressed with the
sincerity and purposefulness of this stranger
who they discovered had been one of the
pioneer missionaries to go from America to
the Orient, and who, after ten years' absence,
was on her way home for her first visit.

Yes, the traveler was no other than Ann
Hasseltine Judson, who had bidden her hus-
band good-by in Rangoon, Burma, and was
now voyaging westward toward her girlhood
home in America. Was there, do you think,
no tinge of regret in her joyous anticipations
of father, mother, sisters, and all the dear,
familiar scenes of New England? Leagues
and leagues behind in old Rangoon lay the
home of her womanhood, the first and only
home of her married life. It had cost labor
and sorrow abundant to establish that home,
but the priceless treasure of one's heart is
always won out of travail of spirit. Thus
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Ann of Ava

her life had become fibered deeply into the
environment of heathen Burma, and to trans-
plant it was like uprooting a firmly embedded
tree. " Rangoon, from having been the thea-
ter in which so much of the faithfulness,
power, and mercy of God had been exhibited,
from having been considered, for ten years
past, as my home for life, and from a thou-
sand interesting associations of ideas, had
become the dearest spot on earth. Hence you
will imagine that no ordinary consideration
could have induced my departure." These
words Mrs. Judson wrote to a friend as she
was leaving Burma.

It was indeed " no ordinary consideration,"
but a life and death concern which had com-
pelled the long separation from her husband
and her beloved work. She had become worn
out by a deep-seated disease which foiled
every attempt at its cure. Before his very
eyes her husband had seen her wasting away,
until the truth was forced upon him that un-
less his wife were sent at once to a more
hardy, northern climate, she could live but a
few months. It was a Spartan decision, but
as Mrs. Judson said, " duty to God, to our-

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Ann of Ava

selves, to the board of missions, and to the
perishing Burmans compelled us to adopt this
course of procedure, though agonizing to all
the natural feelings of our hearts."

Upon arrival in Calcutta, in September,
1821, Mrs. Judson found the captains of
America-bound vessels unwilling to receive
passengers, as cargoes had been accepted to
the extent of their ships' capacity. Passage
to England was therefore the alternative and
a kindly-disposed captain agreed to take her
for a moderate sum provided she would share
a stateroom with three children who were
being sent to England. When the father
heard of the proposition he offered to pay
the entire cost of the cabin that his children
might have the benefit of Mrs. Judson's com-
panionship.

Mr. Kipling has declared that " If youVe
'card the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed
naught else." And so it was with jMrs. Jud-
son. The further she sailed toward the West
the more tenaciously her thoughts clung to
the Eastern city she had left behind. Be-
fore her eyes stretched the great expanse of
ocean, but before her inner vision appeared
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Ann of Ava

a curiously wrought building, made partly
of bamboo and thatch, and located on one of
the pagoda roads in Rangoon. JNIemory and
imagination haunted this place, for it was
the scene of her most precious experiences of
the last two years and was now the probable
setting of her husband's daily labor. It was
their wayside chapel, or " zayat," as the Bur-
mese called it, built by JMr. Judson on his
return from the unfortunate Chittagong trip.
In the zayat Moung Nau had openly con-
fessed his allegiance to Jesus Christ, es-
teeming it a rare privilege to be the first
Christian convert among the Burmese people,
even though he had naught to expect in this
world but persecution and death. There, on
the Sunday after Moung Nau's baptism, the
Lord's Supper was for the first time adminis-
tered by Mr. Judson in two languages, Eng-
lish and Burmese, an event which had been
the desire of his heart for six long years.
In the open room at the front the learned
teacher JNIoung Shwa-gnong had appeared
day after da^ questioning and reasoning, his
philosophic mind disturbed but not convinced
until months later when he finally thrust aside

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fear of disgrace and persecution and besought
Mr. Judson for baptism. In the inner room
the Wednesday evening class was accustomed
to meet with Mrs. Judson, and cherished were
the memories of those evening hours. Espe-
cially did her thoughts linger with her friend
Mah Men-la, that capable, influential Bur-
mese woman, the first of her sex to acknowl-
edge herself a Christian; who later, of her
own accord opened a village school that the
boys and girls might not have to resort to
the Buddhist priests for instruction. There
was also her faithful sister Mah Myat-lah and
there were Moung Thah-lah, Moung Byaa,
and the rest of that stalwart little band of
disciples, members of the church, twelve in
number when Mrs. Judson left Burma. No
wonder that she and her husband felt as if
they had entered a little way into the experi-
ence of their Lord, whose heart was drawn
out in yearning love toward his twelve dis-
ciples I

Never would Mrs. Judson forget the stead-
fastness of those first converts, three in num-
ber, who rallied around her husband in his
hour of bitter discouragement, when he was
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A Burmese Christian Home

Ann of Ava

on the verge of abandoning the mission and
removing to Chittagong. " Stay," they said,
" until a little church of ten is collected, and
then if you must go we will not say nay.
In that case we shall not be concerned. This
religion will spread of itself. The emperor
cannot stop it."

It was the failure of the Ava trip which
had wrought that depression of Mr. Judson's
usually buoyant spirits. Oh, the chagrin and
ignominy of that journey! Mrs. Judson's
heart sank as she recalled the experiences
which she had heard her husband narrate so
often. IMr. Judson, accompanied by his
new missionary associate, ]Mr. Colman, had
traveled in a native rowboat three hundred
and fifty miles from Rangoon to the royal
city Ava, that they might present to the
emperor a petition for religious freedom in
Burma. Carefully had they prepared to
conciliate his majesty with gifts, choosing as
the most appropriate offering, the Bible
printed in six volumes, each volume bound in
gold leaf and enclosed in a rich, embroidered
covering.

And then Mrs. Judson pictured the mis-

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sionaries' reception at the court of Ava, the
splendor of the royal palace, vast and golden,
and the proud, disdainful young monarch,
with his rich, Oriental garb and gold-sheathed
sword, and his commanding eye; before him
the American teachers, her husband and Mr.
Colman, kneeling and humbly proffering their
petition for freedom to preach Christ's gospel
to the Burmese people! It was a dramatic
moment, a heathen emperor for the first time
since the days of Rome confronted face to
face by the quiet, determined followers of
Jesus Christ! At first his majesty listened
somewhat attentively and then reread the
petition, handing it back without a word.
Breathlessly the two missionaries waited as
he took the tract, beautifully printed for his
benefit, from the hand of his minister of
state, and read the first two sentences which
assert there is but one eternal God, when,
with supreme indifference, he flung it to the
ground, thus deciding their fate. Two cut-
ting sentences pronounced by the minister
finally blasted their hopes: " In regard to the
objects of your petition, his majesty gives
no order. In regard to your sacred books,
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Ann of Ava

his majesty has no use for them, take them
away." Then followed the ignominious re-
treat from the palace grounds and down the
river to Rangoon to the solace of home and
a few loyal friends.

One member of that little family group
had traveled with Mrs. Judson from Burma
to India, Emily Von Someren, who was re-
turning to her childhood home in Madras to
spend the time of her foster mother's absence.
She could picture the child of ten years sit-
ting sedately before a class of aged Bur-
mese men and women teaching them their
letters. And last summer Emily had been
the mainstay of the household, when Mr. and
Mrs. Judson were both sick with fever at
the same time with no attendant but the girl
of thirteen. God had been good to lend them
the little Dutch girl for so long a time.

Added to memories of the past, came reali-
ties of the present charged with pleasure un-
expected. Soon after Mrs. Judson landed in
England, ^Ir. Joseph Butterworth, an emi-
nent Christian gentleman and member of
Parliament, claimed her as the guest of his
home. In his house she met many distin-

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Ann of Ava

guished people, among them Wilberforce,
Babington, and Somers, the king's chaplain.
Afterwards Mr. Butterworth, in alluding to
her visit, said that it reminded him of the
apostolic injunction: "Be not forgetful to
entertain strangers, for thereby some have
entertained angels unawares."

Friends in Scotland heard of Mrs. Judson's
arrival in England and urgently invited her
to visit them, offering to defray her expenses
thither. Thus she spent several weeks in that
wonderful little country, with its thrilling
history and stanch Christian people. While
there she received a letter from the Baptist
mission board in America asking her to
come at once to the United States by the
New York packet. She hastened to Liver-
pool to take passage upon this ship, but was
dissuaded by some kind ladies in that city
who insisted upon pajnng her expenses upon
a larger, more comfortable vessel.

Consequently, on August 16, on board the
Amity, Mrs. Judson recorded in her diary:
" Should I be preserved through the voyage,
the next land I tread will be my own native
soil, ever loved America, the land of my
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birth. I cannot realize that I shall ever
again find myself in my own dear home at
Bradford amid the scenes of my early youth,
where every spot is associated with some ten-
der recollection. But the constant idea that
my husband is not a participator of my joys
will mar them all."

The beautiful coloring of October lay upon
the New England hills when Ann Hasseltine
Judson returned along the old Boston Road
to her father's house in Bradford. The voy-
age from Burma had hardly seemed so in-
tolerably slow as the last ten miles over which
the stage-coach crept its way. One by one
familiar landmarks came into view, well-
remembered roads leading to neighboring
towns, houses where lived old acquaintances,
a distant village on a hill, and flowing swiftly
through the valley, the dear old river Merri-
mac. Excitement quickened every moment
and was at its topmost pitch when the cluster
of white houses forming the village of Brad-
ford emerged in sight. Now they are ap-
proaching Bradford Academy, the " pet and
pride of the community," yet still the same
humble little building in which Nancy Has-

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seltine and Harriet Atwood went to school
some eighteen years ago. And now at last
they are drawing near the Hasseltine home-
stead and the welcome of father, mother,
Rebecca, Mary, and Abigail.

What a home-coming it was! Ten years
of absence and sometimes no letter from the
wanderer for a year or more at a time! On
her part, two solid years and a half of hungry
expectancy before the first home letter ar-
rived! What wonder that the Hasseltine
family felt almost as if they had received
their yomigest daughter from the dead!
What wonder, too, that the house was
thronged with visitors from morning until
night, neighbors, friends, and kindred from
near and far coming to welcome the girl they
used to know, who, as a woman, had traveled
farther than any of the stay-at-home New
England folk had ever dreamed! And what
thrilling, unimaginable experiences she had
to narrate, and how the foreign missionary
venture branded as " wild and romantic " ten
years ago, seemed to be justified in the light
of the wonderful work begun in Burma!

It was a glad, proud moment for Miss
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Abigail Hasseltine, the preceptress of Brad-
ford Academy, when her younger sister, al-
ways her favorite, stood before the academy
students and told them of her loved work in
the East, its hardships and hindrances and
its glorious prospects. Like Miss Abigail,
the boys and girls were captivated by the
speaker's grace and beauty and thrilled by
her whole-hearted enthusiasm.

But, alas, Mrs. Judson had not counted
the cost of this home-coming, had not once
imagined its joy would exact so heavy a
price. From the hour of arrival in her
native land excitement robbed her nerves
of their equilibrium. For the first four
nights she was not able to close her eyes in
sleep. Then came the immense shock of
joy at the reunion with her family and
friends, and for six weeks she could not
obtain one quiet night of sleep. The con-
stant round of visitors, together with the
cold of an approaching New England winter
undermined her health to such a degree that
she was in a most alarming condition. The
very purpose of her trip to America was
being defeated, and however drastic the

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measure, she must devise some way to secure
complete rest and quiet in a milder climate
than Massachusetts.

One . expedient suggested itself as feas-
ible. Mr. Judson's only brother, Elnathan,
was a surgeon of considerable skill working
under government appointment in Balti-
more. He had sensed the urgency of his
sister's situation and had frequently written
begging her to come south to take the treat-
ment for her disease which could not be at-
tempted with safety in the north. Her
" Indian constitution " as she called it, was
ill adapted to the rigors of a New England
climate after long habituation to the tropics.

Thus, even in America, Mrs. Judson had
to make heroic decisions, but heroic decisions
seemed to have become almost the law of
her life. A courageous act it was to tear
herself away from her father's house after
six weeks' presence and ten years' absence,
yet it was her paramount duty to regain her
health and to subordinate every other in-
terest. So, late in November, she traveled
bravely forth from Bradford to Providence,
thence by steamboat to New York, where she
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Ann of Ava

paused for one interesting, memorable night.
A large number of people, hearing of her
brief stay in the city, assembled to give her
welcome and to pray with one accord for
the mission work in Burma. It was a brac-
ing experience to find such heartfelt interest
in the far-away mission, yet the very exulta-
tion of feeling mingled with thoughts of the
distant home in Rangoon wrought such a
havoc of fatigue that she was scarcely able
to proceed on her journey to Baltimore.

For the next four months Mrs. Judson
made a brave struggle for health. Through
her brother's influence she was attended by
the most eminent physicians in Baltimore,
who agreed in assuring her that she would
recover by springtime, but could not have
lived through the winter had she stayed in
New England. Even in the milder climate
of Maryland it was no easy task to recuper-
ate spent energy and heal the deep-seated
disease. Although for a time company was
excluded and the coveted opportunity to tell
of the need in Burma prohibited, yet even
in her sick room Mrs. Judson worked daily
for the mission she loved better than life it-

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Ann of Ava

self. Many friends in England had be-
sought her to write a history of the Ameri-
can mission in Burma of which she and her
husband had been the founders. This she
had essayed to do, beginning on shipboard
during the voyage across the Atlantic, and
now resuming the labor at the rate of five
hours a day despite weakness and pain. The
book was written in the form of letters ad-
dressed to Joseph Butterworth, Esq., M.P.,
London, her kind host and patron during
her stay in England. Before Mrs. Judson
left America her manuscript was printed,
and to-day, in a few libraries and private
collections is still treasured the little old-
fashioned volume in its original garb of 1823.
Of all the interesting mail from near and
far which came to brighten Mrs. Judson's
isolation, do you imagine anything brought
such a thrill of satisfaction as those letters
which bore the marks of long travel from
Rangoon, Burma? One day in February a
copy of Mr. Judson's journal reached his
wife and with breathless interest she read
those closely-written pages. Five more con-
verts to Christianity, among them three
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Ann of Ava

women who had formerly attended Mrs.
Judson's Wednesday meeting in the zayatl
Eighteen members of the church of Christ
in Burma, a number pitifully small when
you remember the millions of people, and
yet hopefully large when you stop to think
that from a heathen idol to a heavenly Father
is a long way for the human mind to travel
in its search for God! "You will readily
imagine my anxiety to get back to Rangoon,"
wrote Mrs. Judson to her sister soon after
the receipt of the Burmese letter.

When the opportunity for usefulness was
so glowing with promise it was galling to
one's ambition to be held captive in a sick
room, yet in that period of quiet retirement
from the world Mrs. Judson's spirit was
being equipped for the great tribulation
through which she was destined to pass. It
seemed as if by her prayers she had entered
into that shining region of peace and light
where dwell the " very inhabitants of
heaven," and had brought away something
of its radiant atmosphere. God had become
the solace and delight of her inner life, and
from this time on, " neither death, nor life,

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Ann of Ava

nor angels, . . . nor any other creature "
would be able to separate her " from the love
of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord."
This was just the armor her soul needed
for its coming warfare.

In March and April Mrs. Judson spent
several weeks in Washington, reading proof
of her book, which was finished and in press.
There, as everywhere slie went, she left the
impress of a lovely personality absolutely
devoted to God and to the work he had given
her to do in the world. While she was in
Washington, the Baptist General Conven-
tion, otherwise known as the mission board,
held its annual session in the city. From its
number a committee was appointed to confer
with Mrs. Judson regarding the Burma
mission, and at her suggestion several im-
portant measures were adopted. Those who
came in touch with her on this occasion, as
well as many others, realized as they had
never done before, the claim of Burma upon
the Baptist churches of America, to whose
efforts exclusively God had committed this
portion of his needy world.

With the warmer weather of spring Mrs.
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Ann of Ava

Judson was able to return to Bradford,
though only for a fleeting visit, because she
purposed to sail for Burma early in the sum-
mer. In vain did her friends entreat her
to remain another year that her health might
be completely restored. The voice of the
East was " callin' " so audibly in her soul
that she could literally " 'eed naught else."
Some mysterious foreboding told her she
was going away never to return, but this
strange, solemn conviction no whit lessened
her desire to depart.

On a June day in 1823, a large group of
Christian people assembled at the Boston
wharf to bid farewell to three missionaries
who were sailing for the East, Mrs. Ado-
niram Judson and Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan
Wade, destined, all three, for the American
mission in Burma. The summer setting of
this scene was quite unlike the bleak, wintry
day in February, 1812, when the first mis-
sionaries from America to the heathen world
sailed out of Salem harbor. As different too
as summer is from winter was the expectancy
singing in Mrs. Judson's heart, for she was
this time on her way — home.

XII
THE GOLDEN CITY OF AVA

WITHIN sound of the pagoda bells
in old Rangoon and within sight
of the broad river leading to the
sea, Adoniram Judson stood looking intently
toward the west. His slight, alert figure and
his keen brown eyes easily identified him
with the young man who had led his classes
and his classmates at Brown and Andover.
His face had always been that of the scholar,
sensitive and thoughtful, but lines of invinci-
ble determination and marks of strong suffer-
ing now revealed his manhood's experience.
Despite all the ravages of a tropical and un-
civilized country for the last ten years, he
was still youthful in face and form, still as
immaculate in appearance, despite the old-
fashioned cut of his clothes, as if he had just
emerged from the tidy New England par-
sonage which was his boyhood home.

In point of fact he had just emerged from

his well-ordered study in the mission house

in Rangoon, the room which had been his

perpetual retreat for the past ten months

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Ann of Ava

while he strove to banish anxiety and loneli-
ness by unremitting application to study.
During that period of waiting for his wife's
return he had finished his translation of the
New Testament and had written in Burmese
a summary in twelve sections of the vast con-
tents of Old Testament history, two enor-
mous tasks, equal to the output of a dozen
ordinary brains. The stint of his mind was
now accomplished, but the desire of his heart
was not yet realized. When would the ship,
bringing to him more precious cargo than
all the costly merchandise which ever crossed
the seas, come sailing into port? He strained
his eyes seaward to catch the first glint of
light on an approaching sail.

After Mrs. Judson left Burma, more than
two years before, her husband had again
been enticed up the river to the royal city,
Ava. His new missionary colleague. Dr.
Price, had been summoned thither by order
of the king himself, who had heard of the
foreign doctor's skill and desired an exhibi-
tion of his ability. In this royal invitation
Mr. Judson perceived an opportunity to
press his claim a second time on behalf of

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Ann of Ava

religious liberty for the Burmese followers of
Christ. On this occasion his hopes were not
blighted as formerly, for the king and his court
extended a gracious reception to the American
doctor and teacher, and moreover displayed
astonishing readiness to learn the meaning of
the new religion which the Western strangers
had introduced into the old Buddhist empire.
After four months' stay in Ava, during which
time he associated constantly with the royal
family and government officials, Mr. Judson
essayed to return home to Rangoon to watch
for the coming of his wife. As he took leave
of the king, his majesty protested against
his going away and bade him come again
and dwell permanently in the golden city. A
plot of ground had been given Mr. Judson
as a site for a house, and his hopes ran high
at the prospect of founding a Christian mis-
sion in the capital city of the nation. No
tinge of foreboding darkened his thought as
he retraced his course down the Irawadi to the
port city of Rangoon.

It was early in February, 1823, when Mr.
Judson returned home from Ava; it was ten
months later, on the fifth day of December,
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Ann of Ava

when an English ship was reported at the
mouth of the river and after some hours came
sailing triumphantly into the broad harbor
of Rangoon. The repressed longing of two
years' separation breaks its bounds to-day,
for, lo, the traveler has returned from her
long, long journey! It is verily Ann Hassel-
tine who has come back, not the Mrs. Judson
who went away, frail and careworn, but the
girl of olden days, with her fresh color, health,
and beauty. What a traveler she has been,
skirting the edge of four continents, com-
passing boundless leagues of ocean, circum-
navigating hemispheres, and now safe and
sound in the Burmese city from which she
set forth two years and four months ago!
Yes, she has actually reached the home which
lay always " at the end of her dream," but
not, alas, to settle down in the mission house
as hitherto, but to travel on, on to the chief
city of the empire, where dwells the all-
powerful, capricious king. Ava, the golden
city, what is there in your simple name to
suggest unbridled cruelty and despotism for
all those who forfeit the favor of your
haughty monarch?

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Ann of Ava

Unwitting of danger, the husband and
wife, accompanied by a few Burmese con-
verts, set out for the new mission in the royal
city. Mr. and Mrs. Hough, who had re-
turned from Bengal during Mrs. Judson's
absence, together with the newcomers, Mr.
and Mrs. Wade, formed a force of workers
sufficient to care for the mission in Rangoon.
Mr. and Mrs. Judson, the intrepid pioneers,
must press on to claim another heathen city
for the one true God.

For six weeks in January and February,
1824, their little boat pushed its way against
the wind up stream toward Ava. Often in
the tortuous course of the river they walked
through the wayside villages and overtook
their snail-like conveyance. A foreign
woman had never been seen in these inland
towns, and great was the excitement when
Mrs. Judson appeared. Friends and rela-
tives were notified of her approach that none
might miss the extraordinary sight.

Within one hundred miles of Ava the
travelers were confronted by a spectacle in-
tended to strike wonder and terror into the
hearts of beholders. The famous Burmese

Ann of Ava

general, Bandoola, with his army, was mak-
ing his pompous journey to the coast, con-
fidently expecting to fight and conquer the
armies of Britain. His golden barge, sur-
rounded by a fleet of golden war boats, met
the humble little craft containing the mis-
sionaries and promptly challenged their right
to proceed. When informed that the trav-
elers were not English people, but Ameri-
cans going to Ava at the express command
of the king, they permitted them to go on
their way unmolested. From now on, how-
ever, the missionaries knew that war was a
menacing probability and that at any mo-
ment they might be plunged into its grim
realities.

A few days before they reached Ava, Dr.
Price, who had heard of their approach,
came in a small boat to meet them. It was
a somewhat sorry tale he had to tell, dampen-
ing to their expectations of a welcome in the
royal city. The tide of popularity had
seemed to turn against the foreign residents
of Ava. The old privy councilors of the
king had been dismissed and their places
filled by new officials who neither knew nor

[153]

Ann of Ava

cared for the American teachers. Thus Mr.
Judson foresaw that he had little to expect
for the mission he and Dr. Price planned to
establish.

Upon arrival in the city, prospects were
no less doleful. No house opened its door
to receive them except Dr. Price's, which was
unfinished and so unsavory with dampness
that Mrs. Judson, after a few hours' stay,
was thrown into a fever. There was no
alternative but to abide in the boat until a
shelter of some sort could be erected upon
the plot of ground given by the king to Mr.
Judson on his former visit. Mrs. Judson
could hardly credit her senses when, in ex-
actly two weeks after their arrival, they
moved their belongings into a comfortable
house of three rooms and a veranda, actually
built and completed in that incredibly short
timel

Therein, despite meager encouragement
from the royal palace, they began to hold
services every evening, which a number of
Burmese attended. It was a decided ad-
vantage to be able to speak the language
with such ease as these two foreigners
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Ann of Ava

had acquired. Every Sundaj^ Mr. Judson
preached to an audience varying in number
from twelve to twenty who assembled at Dr.
Price's house across the river. Mrs. Judson
opened a school for girls, consisting origi-
nally of three small pupils, two of them
being sisters whom their father had given to
Mrs. Judson to educate. She named them
for her own sisters, Mary and Abby Hassel-
tine and planned to support one of them
with the money which the " Judson Asso-
ciation of Bradford Academy " had agreed
to contribute. In a spirit of quiet depend-
ence upon God the missionaries applied
themselves to their tasks, conscious, neverthe-
less, that trouble was brewing every day.

Mr. Judson went two or three times to the
royal palace, according to his former habit,
but the king scarcely deigned to notice him.
The queen, who had previously expressed a
strong desire to see the teacher's wife in her
foreign dress, now made no inquiries nor ex-
pressed a wish for her presence. Conse-
quently Mrs. Judson did not attempt to
visit the palace although she was invited al-
most every day to call upon members of the

[166]

Ann of Ava

royal family living outside the palace en-
closure. The only course of procedure
seemed to be to carry out their original in-
tentions as unobtrusively as possible, seeking
at every step to give evidence that they had
nothing to do with the war.

Still, suspicion seemed to rest ominously
upon the foreigners who dwelt at Ava. Af-
ter the king and queen took formal possession
of the new palace just completed, an order
was issued that, with one exception, no for-
eigner should be allowed to enter its pre-
cincts. This mysterious command was some-
what disconcerting, but for two or three weeks
no alarming event occurred, and preparations
were steadily made for the new brick house
which was to shelter the Judson family from
the blistering heat of the tropics.

On Sunday, the 23rd of May, the little
group of Christians gathered as usual for
worship at Dr. Price's house, when, at the
close of service, a messenger appeared at the
door with an exciting announcement. Man-
goon had been captured by the British army!
War was a vivid reality now, and the for-
eigners in Ava must face its uncertain issues.
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Ann of Ava

Mr. Gouger, a young English merchant re-
siding in Ava, was in the company of the
missionaries when the news arrived, and for
his safety they feared more exceedingly than
for their own. As Americans, they fervently
hoped they would not be entangled in the
aflPairs of war. Yet one and all repaired
to the Judsons' house in the city to consult.
Mr. Gouger made haste to interview the
prince who was the king's most influential
brother. His reply was, that his majesty
had definitely stated that " the few foreigners
residing in Ava had nothing to do with the
war and should not be molested." Even with
this assurance apprehension was not wholly
allayed.

The cause of the war was that ill-fated
country, ill-fated at least to the Judsons,
known as Chittagong. This region was
under British rule, and Burmese subjects
often took refuge there from the despotism
of their own government. The king of
Burma demanded that his subjects should
be arrested by British officers and returned
to his authority. Furthermore, the Burmans
resented the flag of Great Britain in a

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Ann of Ava

country which they felt belonged logically to
their own nation. Consequently they made
audacious advances into British territory
and every attempt on the part of that gov-
ernment for redress was met by indifference,
and finally by active preparations for war.
So monstrous was the daring of this un-
civilized nation that they even proposed to
invade Bengal itself. It was rumored that
Bandoola's army carried a pair of golden
fetters destined to be worn by the Governor-
general of India when he should be led cap-
tive to the " golden feet " of Burma's mon-
arch. The military pride of Great Britain
would endure this insolence no longer, and
in May, 1824, an army of six thousand men
under the command of Sir Archibald Camp-
bell was dispatched to Rangoon. So totally
unexpected was this attack that little or no
resistance was made and Rangoon fell
promptly into the hands of the enemy.

When the news of the fall of Rangoon
reached the royal city, almost gleeful prep-
arations were made for speedy retaliation.
Never a doubt was harbored of the possibility
of victory, the king's only fear being that
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Ann of Ava

the British would be so overwhelmed with
terror at the approach of the Burmese troops
that they would flee away in their ships be-
fore they could be captured as slaves. " Bring
me," said the wife of a high official, " four
white strangers to manage the affairs of my
house, as I understand they are trusty serv-
ants." In three or four days an army of
ten thousand men was enlisted and sent on
its way down the river toward Rangoon. As
the war boats passed the Judsons' house on
the river bank, the soldiers were dancing,
singing, and gesticulating in high glee.
" Poor fellows," said those who knew the
prowess of the greatest military nation on
earth, " you will probably never dance again."
As soon as the army had departed from
the city, the government officials began to
ask why the English soldiers had attacked
Rangoon. There must be spies in the coun-
try who have invited them, was the insidious
suggestion, instantaneously adopted. " And
who so likely to be spies as the English-
men residing in Ava?" A rumor was circu-
lated that Captain Laird, recently arrived, had
brought papers from Bengal which stated the

[169]

Ann of Ava

purpose of the English to take Rangoon.
The three Englishmen, Mr. Gouger, Captain
Laird, and Mr. Rogers, were summoned for
examination, and were kept in confinement
though not in prison. Mr. and Mrs. Judson
began to tremble for their own safety and
were in daily dread of some direful event.
Soon the day came when Mr. Judson and
Dr. Price were commanded to appear at the
court of inquiry. Had they ever sent in-
formation to foreigners about the condition
of affairs in Burma? They replied that they
had always written to their friends in
America, but that they had no correspond-
ence whatsoever with British officers. After
their examination was over they were not
put in confinement as were the English-
men, but were allowed to return to their
homes.

Upon inspecting the accounts of Mr. Gou-
ger, the Burmese officials came upon evidence
which to their minds fully incriminated the
American missionaries. As it was the cus-
tom of the Americans to receive their money
by orders on Bengal, there were accordingly
entries in Mr. Gouger's book recording pay-
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ments of considerable sums to Dr. Price and
Mr. Judson. Knowing nothing of such busi-
ness methods, the Burmans concluded that
the Americans were in the employ of the
English, and were therefore spies. The dis-
covery was reported to the king, who, in
angry tones, ordered the immediate arrest of
the " two teachers."

On the 8th day of June Mr. and Mrs.
Judson were quietly preparing for dinner,
when suddenly the door was flung open and
a Burmese officer rushed in, holding in his
hand the dreaded black book, the sign of
doom. Behind him pressed a dozen rough
men, among them one of hideous aspect,
whose spotted face marked him instantly as
a " son of the prison," a jailer and execu-
tioner. " Where is the teacher? " asked the
officer's gruff voice. Mr. Judson immediately
came forward. " You are called by the
king," said the officer, in the form of speech
used when arresting criminals. As soon as
the fateful sentence was pronounced, the
spotted man seized Mr. Judson, threw him
on the floor and proceeded to bind him with
the small cord used by the Burmans as an

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instrument of torture. " Stay," cried Mrs.
Judson, grasping the man's arm, " I will
give you money." " Take her, too," was the
officer's brutal rejoinder, " she also is a for-
eigner." With one beseeching look Mr. Jud-
son entreated them to leave his wife until
further orders should be received.

From that moment the scene was chaos
personified. The neighbors gathered in fran-
tic curiosity. The masons at work on the
new brick house dropped their tools and ran.
The little Burmese girls, JVIary and Abby,
screamed in terror. The Bengali servants
stood petrified with horror at the insults
heaped upon their master. IMeanwhile, the
spotted-faced executioner, with a kind of
fiendish delight, tightened the cords which
bound his prisoner. Again Mrs. Judson im-
plored him to take the money and loosen the
ropes, but he only spurned her offer and
dragged her husband away, to what fate she
dared not imagine. She gave the money to
Moung Ing, one of the Rangoon Christians
who had accompanied them to Ava, bidding
him follow her husband and try to relieve
his suffering. To her distress he came back
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with the report that when a few rods' distant
from the house, the hardened wretches threw
their prisoner to the ground and drew the
cords still tighter, so that he could scarcely
breathe. They marched him to the court-
house, related Moung Ing, where the gov-
ernor and city officials were assembled. There
the king's order was read, consigning Mr.
Judson to the death prison, that fatal place
from which none ever emerged save by special
intervention of the king.

From the court-house to the prison en-
closure Mr. Judson was dragged, and up
the high steps to the one dark, filthy room
where the hapless prisoners were confined.
" Let-ma-yoon " was the name for this cham-
ber of horrors, a name so hideously appro-
priate that those who knew the Burmese lan-
guage shuddered at its mention. " Hand-
shrink-not " was its meaning, — shrink not
from the most revolting cruelties ever de-
vised by mortal man or incarnate fiend.

With the knowledge of her husband's com-
mittal to the death prison that June day
came to a close, leaving in Mrs. Judson's
mind ghastly memories, but apprehensions

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yet more horrible. From that night began
the extraordinary series of maneuvers for
the rescue of her husband and the other for-
eign prisoners, which made Ann Hasseltine
Judson known in the East and West as the
heroine of Ava,

[164]

XIII
THE HEROINE OF AVA

THE sunshine of a June afternoon in
the tropics beat down upon the little
house on the river bank in Ava,
where, on the fatal day of the arrest, Mrs.
Judson was left alone with her Burmese
companions. The first shock of terror was
still upon her as she went into an inner room
to face the horrible situation into which a
few short hours had plunged her. An un-
protected foreign woman in the midst of an
lalien people whose every impulse was bent
upon revenge! Her dearest companion in
the world imprisoned and tortured, possibly
doomed to death! The tragedy of her situa-
tion has scarcely been equaled in human his-
tory. In overwhelming grief she cast herself
upon the love and mercy of God, imploring
strength to endure the sufferings which
awaited her. Only infinite goodness could
overcome the forces of cruel ignorance let
loose in that heathen city.

Even the comfort of solitude was speedily

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denied, for the tramp of feet was heard on
the veranda and a gruff voice demanded her
appearance. It was the magistrate of the
city calling the wife of the foreign prisoner
to come forth for examination. Before obey-
ing the summons she destroyed every letter,
journal, and manuscript in her possession
lest their existence should reveal the fact
that they had correspondents in England
and that they had recorded every happening
since arrival in the country. This task of
precaution completed, Mrs. Judson presented
herself before the Burmese official, who ques-
tioned her about every minute matter sup-
posed to lie within her knowledge. This or-
deal over, he ordered the gate closed, for-
bade any one to go in or out, and stationed
a band of ruffians on guard, strictly charging
them to keep their prisoner safe. With his
duties thus pompously discharged the magis-
trate strode away.

The darkness of night fell upon the doomed
house, and the gloom of death seemed to lurk
in its shadows. Again Mrs. Judson took
refuge in the inside room, drawing her little
Burmese girls with her, and barring the door
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Ann of Ava

behind them. Instantly the guard com-
manded her to mifasten the door and come
out, threatening, if she disobeyed, to break
down the house. As persistently as they de-
manded, she refused, and tried to frighten
them by declaring that she would complain
of their conduct to higher authorities. Fi-
nally, perceiving that she was determined
not to yield, they seized the two Bengali
servants and thrust them into the stocks in
most painful positions. Their plight was un-
bearable to behold, so Mrs. Judson called
the head man to the window and promised
to give the guard each a present in the morn-
ing if they would release her servants. After
loud argument and rough threatening, they
agreed to the bargain. Their noisy carous-
ings and diabolical language, combined with
the anxiety which pierced ]Mrs. Judson's mind
like a sword, made this June night a long-
drawn horror. Sleep was a far-away phan-
tom and the darkness but a covert of terror.
At the dawn of a new day Mrs. Judson's
first move was to dispatch Moung Ing to
the prison to find out her husband's condition
and to give him food, if he was still alive.

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Ann of Ava

Moung Ing returned quickly with the news
that Mr. Judson and the other foreigners
were confined in the death prison, each bound
with three pairs of iron fetters and fastened
to a long pole to prevent their moving. The
climax of agony for Mrs. Judson lay in the
fact that she was a prisoner herself, and
could make no efforts for their release.
Again and again she besought the magistrate
for permission to go to some member of
government and state her case, but persist-
ently he refused, declaring that he dared not
allow her to go lest she should make her
escape. Foiled in this attempt, she wrote a
letter to one of the king's sisters with whom
she had been exceedingly friendly, beseech-
ing her to exert her influence on behalf of
the foreign prisoners. The note was returned
with the message, " I do not understand it,"
which in reality was a polite refusal to inter-
fere. Afterwards Mrs. Judson learned that
she had been really eager to help but dared
not risk the queen's disfavor.

The day dragged heavily past, and the
darkness of another night settled down upon
the little household of burdened people. To
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Ann of Ava

propitiate the guard, Mrs. Judson gave them
tea and presents which softened their temper
to such an extent that they refrained from
molesting her throughout the night. Yet
sleep came only in broken snatches, for per-
petually before her mind loomed the vision
of her husband, bound in iron fetters and
stretched upon the prison floor.

When morning came Mrs. Judson arose,
keyed for action. She had at last contrived
a way to intercede for the prisoners. A mes-
sage was sent to the governor of the city,
requesting him to allow her to visit him with
a present. This device worked like a charm,
for immediately the guard received orders
to allow their prisoner to go into the city.
The governor welcomed his visitor graciously
and inquired kindly what her desire might
be. Whereupon Mrs. Judson related the
situation of the foreigners, especially the two
teachers, her husband and Dr. Price, who, as
Americans, had nothing whatsoever to do
with the war. The governor answered that
it was beyond his power to liberate them, but
that he could make them more comfortable in
prison. There was his head officer, he said,

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Ann of Ava

indicating an evil looking man, with him she
must make terms. The officer led her aside
and tried to impress upon her the fact that
he was complete master of the situation, and
that the future comfort of herself as well as
the prisoners depended upon the generosity
of her presents to himself, which she must
deliver secretly. " What must I do," said
Mrs. Judson, " to obtain a mitigation of the
present sufferings of the two teachers?"
" Pay to me," said he, " two hundred ticals
[about a hundred dollars], two pieces of fine
cloth, and two pieces of handkerchiefs." INIrs.
Judson had taken a considerable sum of
money with her when she left home in the
morning, and this she offered to the greedy
official, who, after some hesitation, accepted
it and promised relief to the tortured pris-
oners.

Her next move was to request the governor
for a passport into the prison, which request
was granted. But for the ghastly reality
which awaited her there the most vivid
imagination was scarcely prepared. In her
own story of the unhappy days in Ava, Mrs.
Judson refused to narrate the heartrending
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Ann of Ava

scene which took place that day at the prison
entrance. Mr. Gouger, who hobbled to the
wicket door at the same time, to receive his
daily provisions, described many years later
the pathetic meeting between the husband
and wife. Mr. Judson crawled to the door,
as the heavy fetters around his ankles pre-
vented his walking. The torture of mind and
body which he had endured was stamped
upon his face, which was as haggard as if
death had already claimed him. His soiled,
unkempt condition added to the misery of his
appearance. At sight of him, his wife buried
her face in her hands, unable to behold the
shocking change which two days had wrought.
Scarcely had they begun to talk together
when the jailers ordered her away. She
pleaded the governor's permit, but they re-
joined, " Depart, or we will pull you out."
Thus she was compelled to turn her weary
steps away from the prison and walk the
two miles back to her house, her mind freshly
tortured by the prison scene, which was in-
finitely worse as a memory than as a con-
jecture.

That evening the missionaries, together

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Ann of Ava

with the other foreigners who had advanced
an equal sum of money, were removed from
the common prison and confined in an open
shed within the prison yard. Here Mrs.
Judson was allowed to send them food, and
mats upon which to sleep, but for several
days entrance was denied her.

As her mind cast about for other expe-
dients, she resolved to send a petition to the
queen herself. Mrs. Judson could not go in
person to the royal palace, since no one in
disgrace with the king was allowed admit-
tance. Through the queen's sister-in-law,
who in better days had shown her marked
favor, she would intercede with her royal
highness. Accordingly she chose a valuable
gift and appeared in the presence of the Bur-
mese noblewoman, who, as she entered, was
reclining in Oriental fashion upon a carpet,
surrounded by her attendants. Without
waiting for the question " What do you
want? " usually addressed to a suppliant, Mrs.
Judson told the story of their unhappy plight
and implored her assistance. Partly raising
her head, she examined the present and re-
plied coldly, " Your case is not singular ; all
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Ann of Ava

the foreigners are treated alike." " But it is
singular," said Mrs. Judson, " the teachers
are Americans; they are ministers of religion,
have nothing to do with war or politics, and
came to Ava in obedience to the king's com-
mand. They have never done anything to
deserve such treatment, and is it right they
should be treated thus?" "The king does
as he pleases," she replied, " I am not the
king; what can I do? " " You can state their
case to the queen and obtain their release,"
answered Mrs. Judson. " Place yourself in
my situation; were you in America, your hus-
band innocent of crime, thrown into prison,
in irons, and you a solitary, unprotected
female, what would you do? " With a slight
show of feeling she replied, " I will present
your petition; come again to-morrow." This
assurance sent Mrs. Judson homeward with
the expectation, perhaps unwarranted, that
the day of freedom was at hand.

On the morrow, however, her heart sank
within her as she heard the news that Mr.
Gouger's property, to the amount of fifty
thousand rupees, had been seized and trans-
ferred to the palace. The officers, as they

[173]

Ann of Ava

returned from the confiscation, informed
Mrs. Judson that they should visit her house
the next day. It was a timely warning and
she acted upon it by hiding away as much
silver and as many precious possessions as she
dared. As she thought of the danger in-
volved in the act, her mind quivered with fear.
If detected, her own imprisonment might be
the penalty. On the other hand the measure
was imperative, since, if war should be pro-
tracted, there would be no way of procuring
money, and starvation would be their doom.
True to their word, the officers appeared
the following morning with an order from
the king to seize the property of the mission-
aries. A lordly retinue seemed to be re-
quired to take away the possessions of a soli-
tary foreign woman. The procession which
approached the house was led by three Bur-
mese noblemen, followed by a band of forty
or fifty attendants. The lady whom they
had come to dispossess of all she owned, re-
ceived her visitors with marked courtesy,
offering them chairs, and treating them with
tea and sweetmeats. They responded to her
courtesy and to the high courage of her
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Ann of Ava

womanhood by conducting their disagreeable
business with more kindliness than Mrs. Jud-
son had ever expected to find in a Burmese
official. Only the high dignitaries entered
the house, the attendants being ordered to
wait outside. Perceiving the grief which
Mrs. Judson could not conceal, they even
apologized for the necessity of their task,
which they claimed was painful to them.

" Where are your silver, gold, and jew-
els? " inquired the royal treasurer. " I have
no gold or jewels," answered Mrs. Judson,
" but here is the key of a trunk which con-
tains the silver, do with it as you please."
The trunk was opened and the silver weighed.
" This money," interposed Mrs. Judson,
" was collected in America by the disciples
of Christ, and sent here for the purpose of
building a kyoung (a priest's dwelling), and
for our support while teaching the religion
of Christ. Is it suitable that you should take
it?" The Burmese are habitually opposed
to the acceptance of money given for religious
purposes, hence the shrewdness of Mrs. Jud-
son's appeal. " We will state this circum-
stance to the king," replied an officer, " per-

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Ann of Ava

haps he will restore it. But is this all the
silver you have?" "The house is in your
possession," she said, evading a direct reply,
" search for yourselves." " Have you not
deposited silver with some person of your
acquaintance?" "My acquaintances are all
in prison; with whom should I deposit
silver?"

Examination of Mrs. Judson's trunk and
dresser was the next command, and with
some nicety of consideration they permitted
only one of their number to attend her in
this search. Everything which appealed to
him as valuable or interesting was submitted
to the other officials for decision as to whether
it should be taken or left. Mrs. Judson sug-
gested the impropriety of taking partly worn
clothing into the presence of the king, to
which they agreed, and simply made a list
of wearing apparel, doing the same with the
books and medicine. Two particular treas-
ures, a little work-table and a rocking-chair,
were recovered from their grasp by a bit of
stratagem on Mrs. Judson's part. Many
other articles of unspeakable value to her
during the months which followed, were left
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Ann of Ava

behind when the work of confiscation was
completed. Still, it was a ravaged, desolate
home from which the officers and their staff
departed that June day.

Scarcely had they disappeared down the
road, when Mrs. Judson hastened to the
house of the queen's sister-in-law to learn
the result of yesterday's appeal. Loss of
property was a mere bagatelle compared with
her husband's imprisonment. To secure his
release was a task which absorbed all her
energies and fondest hopes, and, as time
went on, exacted a superhuman patience.
With hopefulness unrestrained, Mrs. Judson
entered the presence of the Burmese noble-
woman. " I stated your case to the queen,"
coolly announced her ladyship, " but her
majesty replied, ' The teachers mil not die;
let them remain as they are.' " Mrs. Judson's
spirits dropped like a meteor from the high
region of expectancy into an abyss of dis-
appointment. With fatal perception she
knew that if the queen refused to help there
was no one who woidd dare to intercede on
their behalf. *' Weary and heavy-laden " she
turned away and retraced her homeward

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Ann of Ava

course by way of the prison, seeking the
solace of a few minutes in her husband's com-
pany. At the prison gate she was gruffly
denied admittance, and for ten days she was
forbidden to enter, despite daily appeal. The
husband and wife then resorted to letter-
writing, but after a few days the scheme was
discovered and their messenger punished by
beating and confinement in the stocks. They
themselves were fined about ten dollars, be-
sides suffering a torment of fear for the pos-
sible consequences of their daring.

On the morning following the seizure of
her property ]Mrs. Judson visited the gov-
ernor of the city, there to be met by a vig-
orous rebuke. " You are very bad," said the
governor by way of greeting, " why did you
tell the royal treasurer that you had given
me so much money? " During the process
of confiscation the officers had asked JNIrs.
Judson how much money she had paid the
governor and prison officers to secure the
removal of the teachers from the inner prison.
Naturally she had told the truth in reply,
whereupon the officers went straightway to
the governor and extorted from him the sum
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Ann of Ava

stated. He became furiously angry and
threatened to replace the teachers in their
former condition inside the death prison. To
his accusation Mrs. Judson replied naively,
" The treasurer inquired; what could I say? "
" Say that you had given nothing," retorted
the governor, " and I would have made the
teachers comfortable in prison; but now I
know not what will be their fate." " But I
cannot tell a falsehood," asserted Mrs. Jud-
son, "my religion is different from yours; it
forbids prevarication; and had you stood by
me with your knife raised I could not have
said what you suggest." At this juncture
the governor's wife joined in the conversa-
tion. " Very true ; what else could she have
done? I like such straightforward conduct;
you must not be angry with her." From that
moment the governor's wife became her stead-
fast friend.

At this welcome interruption, Mrs. Judson
took opportunity to present to the offended
magistrate a beautiful opera glass recently
received from England, at the same time
begging him not to vent his displeasure upon
the innocent prisoners, promising to recom-

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Ann of Ava

pense him from time to time for the loss he
had sustained on her account. *' You may
intercede for your husband only; for your
sake he shall remain where he is; but let the
other prisoners take care of themselves."
Mrs. Judson pleaded earnestly for Dr. Price,
but the governor was immovable. That very
day he was returned to the dreadful prison
filled with human victims, vermin, heat, and
torture. After ten days he was again re-
moved to the open shed, by virtue of a prom-
ised gift on his part and gifts received from
Mrs. Judson.

From that time on Mrs. Judson's life be-
came a perpetual series of maneuvers to se-
cure the favor of government officials on be-
half of her husband. Scarcely a day passed
without a visit to some member of the royal
family or government staff, when, with diplo-
macy unsurpassed in a woman, she pleaded
the cause of the foreign prisoners. To no
avail were these daily visitations, save that
frequent encouraging promises saved her
from despair, and that, among those in high
authority, many became her loyal friends
who later aided with secret gifts of food and
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Ann of Ava

tried indirectly to create the impression in
the royal palace that the Americans were in
no degree responsible for the war. Yet to
intercede with the king or queen for repeal
of the prison sentence no one had the courage
so long as the British troops were continually
defeating the armies of Burma.

Meanwhile, inside the prison enclosure, Mr.
Judson and his companions suffered persecu-
tions which the intrepid, resourceful wife
could in no wise avert. Sometimes they were
forbidden to speak to one another or to com-
municate with friends outside. Again they
would be compelled to pay bribes for the de-
livery of their food or for the most trifling
favors. At times the use of water was pro-
hibited and fresh clothing denied them. Al-
ways three pairs of heavy fetters bound their
ankles so closely that a shuffle of a few inches
was the only possible step. Again and again
they sought to close their eyes and ears when
some fellow prisoner was tortured with the
cord or iron mallet, or led forth at the fatal
hour of three in the afternoon for execution.

Against this black background of horrors
Mr. Judson's faith in God was like a shining

[181]

Ann of Ava

star. Often he was heard repeating to him-
self the verses of Madame Guyon:

No place I seek, but to fulfil,

In life and death, Thy lovely will;

No succor in my woes I want,

Except what Thou art pleased to grant. *'

Many a time he expressed his belief in the
beneficial outcome of the war: *' Here have
I been," said he, " ten years preaching the
gospel to timid listeners who wished to em-
brace the truth but dared not; beseeching
the emperor to grant liberty of conscience
to his people, but without success; and now,
when all human means seemed at an end,
God opens the way by leading a Christian
nation to subdue the country. It is possible
that my life may be spared, if so, with what
ardor and gratitude shall I pursue my work;
and if not, his will be done; the door will be
opened for others who will do the work bet-
ter." Thus spoke another " ambassador in
chains," with the same ring in his voice, the
same thrill in his soul as was heard eighteen
hundred years before in the Roman prison
where Saint Paul, the first foreign mission-
ary, was held in captivity.
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Ann of Ava

Not satisfied with tormenting their imme-
diate victims, the prison officials spent the
remnant of their ill temper upon JNIrs. Jud-
son. For days in succession they forbade her
to enter the prison until darkness fell, after
which she would be compelled to walk two
miles through the city streets to reach home.
" O, how many, many times," she wrote later
to her brother-in-law, " have I returned from
that dreary prison at nine o'clock at night,
solitary, and worn out with fatigue and
anxiety, and thrown myself down in that
same rocking-chair which you and Deacon L.
provided for me in Boston, and endeavored
to invent some new scheme for the release
of the prisoners. Sometimes, for a moment
or two, my thoughts would glance toward
America, and my beloved friends there; but
for nearly a year and a half, so entirely en-
grossed was every thought with present
scenes and sufferings, that I seldom reflected
on a single occurrence of my former life or
recollected that I had a friend in existence
out of Ava."

To Mrs. Judson the foreign prisoners owed
everything that made prison life tolerable.

[183]

Ann of Ava

Her husband was entirely dependent upon
her for food and clothing, and often her re-
sources were taxed to the utmost for a suffi-
cient supply. For weeks at a time the only
food she could procure was rice savored with
ngapee, a preparation of fish, not altogether
appetizing. One day she contrived a big
surprise for her husband, and sent it by
Moung Ing to the prison. It was actually
a New England mince pie manufactured by
much ingenuity and perseverance out of
buffalo beef and plantains! The simple little
act of devotion touched the imprisoned man
to the quick. He had seen his wife standing
like a queen at the prison gate; he had heard
how she walked through the streets of Ava
protected by an almost enchanted dignity,
how her matchless courage won the hearts of
jailers and nobles alike. Almost could he
thank God for trials which had caused the
glory of her womanhood to shine with such
luster. But this little touch of home was too
much. He bowed his head upon his knees
and the tears rolled down upon the iron fet-
ters which bound his ankles.

Meanwhile the war was pushed with energy
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Ann of Ava

and determination despite continual defeat.
Bandoola alone had contrived to vanquish the
British army, and, in recognition of his
prowess, was recalled to Ava to be given com-
mand of the army sent to Rangoon. While
in the city he was absolute master of affairs,
honored beyond the king himself. To this
popular favorite Mrs. Judson resolved to ap-
peal for the release of the imprisoned mis-
sionaries. Government officials warned her
that it was a foolhardy act, but it was her
last resort, and she could not forbear the at-
tempt. In secret Mr. Judson wrote a peti-
tion and one momentous day Mrs. Judson
entered with fear and trembling into the
presence of the proud general, surrounded
by a crowd of flattering minions. One of
his secretaries took the petition from her hand
and read it aloud while Bandoola listened at-
tentively, and at its finish spoke graciously
to his suppliant, bidding her come again for
his answer. In a few days she returned,
taking with her a valuable present. Ban-
doola was not at home to receive her, but he
had left a message with his wife which she
modestly repeated to Mrs. Judson: " He was

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Ann of Ava

now very busily employed in making prep-
arations for Rangoon, but when he had re^
taken that place and expelled the British,
he would return and release all the prisoners."
An empty boast for Bandoola, and an empty
hope for Mrs. Judson!

From that day she gave up the idea of
escape from prison until the war should be
ended. Yet she must continue those concilia-
tory visits to members of the government, lest
the prisoners should forfeit the small measure
of favor granted them. The governor of the
city always gave her friendly welcome; in
fact, set apart definite hours every other day
when he counted on her coming to talk with
him about American customs. He also per-
mitted her to erect a little bamboo shelter
in the prison yard, where Mr. Judson could
stay part of the time by himself, and where
she was sometimes allowed at her visits to
spend two or three precious hours in his
company.

Thus passed the days of that fatal year,

one by one, until in January Mrs. Judson

was seen no more in her usual haunts. Her

husband, writhing in the fetters which kept

[186]

Ann of Ava

him from going to her help, knew the cause
of his wife's absence, which lengthened into
weeks. He alone realized the loneliness and
privation she was enduring in that uncivilized
city, because, in the little house on the river
bank, a baby child had come into the broken,
suffering lives of its parents. Had it not
been for God, who had never failed them
even in their bitter affliction, Mr. Judson's
agonizing fear for his wife would have passed
endurance. God's goodness would yet master
this cruel oppression.

Twenty days after her birth the baby
Maria was carried to the prison to greet her
father. Long before this time Mrs. Judson
had adopted the Burmese dress, believing
that the native costume would win the favor
of the people. There she stood at the prison
door, her bro^n curls drawn back from her
forehead and fastened with a fragrant coco-
blossom, her richly colored gown, the gift of
the governor's wife, clinging closely about
her figure which seemed to gain height and
stateliness from the costume designed for
women of smaller stature. In contrast to
the Oriental hues of her dress, her face was

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Ann of Ava

white and sad, but inexpressibly sweet. In
her arms lay the pale, blue-eyed baby, crying
as hard as if she understood the scene be-
fore her. Mr. Judson crawled forth to meet
them, and for the first time took his child in
his arms. Afterwards, during the long hours
in the prison he composed some twenty-four
stanzas addressed to an " Infant Daughter,
twenty days old, in the condemned prison
at Ava."

When Maria was two months old, her
mother one day received a frightful message
from the prison. Mr. Judson and all the for-
eigners had been cast into the inner prison
and bound with five pairs of fetters. His
little bamboo room had been torn down, and
mat, pillow, and other possessions seized by
the jailers. The defeat of Bandoola and the
annihilation of his army, together with the
advance of the British forces toward Ava,
had been the cause of these vindictive meas-
ures against the foreign prisoners.

Mrs. Judson set forth at once for the
governor's house to see what could be done.
The governor was not at home, but, antici-
pating her visit, had left a message with his
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Ann of Ava

wife bidding her not to ask to have the extra
fetters removed, nor the prisoners released,
jor it could not be done. From the govern-
or's house she went across to the prison
gate but was forbidden to enter. The still-
ness of death hung over the prison yard.
Not a white face was visible, and not a rem-
nant of Mr. Judson's little shelter was left.
Behind that closed door lay her husband in
the filth and misery of the death prison, and
here was she, only a few rods distant, but
powerless to reach him or ease his suffering.
There was naught to be done but return
home and come again at an hour when the
governor was sure to be accessible.

In the evening she traversed again the
two miles to the governor's house, which was
opposite the prison gate. As she entered the
audience room the governor looked up but
did not speak, and his face expressed shame
and pretended anger combined. Mrs. Jud-
son opened the conversation. " Your lord-
ship has hitherto treated us with the kindness
of a father. Our obligations to you are very
great. We have looked to you for protection
from oppression and cruelty. You have

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Ann of Ava

promised me particularly that you would
stand by me to the last, and though you
should receive an order from the king, you
would not put Mr. Judson to death. What
crime has he committed to deserv^e such ad-
ditional punishment?" At her words the
old man broke down and cried like a child.
" I pity you, Tsa-yah-ga-dau," the name by
which he always called Mrs. Judson, " I knew
you would make me feel; I therefore for-
bade your application. But you must be-
lieve me when I say I do not wish to increase
the sufferings of the prisoners. When I am
ordered to execute them, the least that I can
do is to put them out of sight. I will now
tell you what I have never told you before,
that three times I have received intimations
from the queen's brother to assassinate all the
white prisoners privately, but I would not
do it. And I now repeat it, though I ex-
ecute all the others, I will never execute your
husband. But I cannot release him from
his present confinement and you must not
ask it." Never before had Mrs. Judson seen
the governor display so much feeling nor
such firnmess in denymg her a favor. His
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Ann of Ava

words and manner aroused her worst fore-
bodings for the future.

Meanwhile the scene within the death
prison in Ava was not unlike the hell depicted
by Dante and Milton, save that here there
were a few brave spirits who " were still in
heart and conscience free." The Let-ma-
yoon was an old wooden building about forty
feet long and thirty feet wide. It had no
means of ventilation save crevices between
the flimsy boards, no protection from the
burning sun save the thin roof. Inside this
one room were confined more than a hundred
prisoners, men and women, most of them
chained or fastened in the stocks. The white
prisoners were huddled in a corner, and a
bamboo pole was thrust between the chains
around their ankles, which at night was
hoisted to an angle which left only the
shoulders resting upon the ground. Occa-
sionally Mrs. Judson was allowed to go to
the prison door for five minutes, but mind
and heart reeled at the sight of such misery.
By dint of repeated appeals she won permis-
sion for the foreigners to eat their meals out-
side, but even this privilege was short-lived.

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Ann of Ava

After more than a month in this vile place,
Mr. Judson was taken sick with fever. His
wife perceived that he could not live unless
removed to more wholesome quarters. Con-
sequently, that she might be near the prison
and might the more frequently entreat the
governor for mercy, she moved from their
house on the river bank to a one-room shelter
which the governor permitted her to build
on his premises. At last, worn out by her
entreaties, he gave her an official order for
Mr. Judson's removal, and a permit for her
to visit him at any hour to give medicines.
Accordingly Mr. Judson exchanged the
filthy prison for a little bamboo hovel, so
low that they could not stand upright, but,
as Mrs. Judson said, " a palace compared
with the place he had left."

Here, one morning after breakfast, Mrs.
Judson was lingering with her husband, when
suddenly a message was received from the
governor bidding her come to him at once.
Somewhat alarmed by such unusual summons
she hastily obeyed. To her relief the gov-
ernor made only some idle queries about his
watch and engaged her in affable conversa-
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Ann of Ava

tion for some time. Unsuspectingly she took
her leave and started in the direction of her
room, when a servant came running toward
her, his face pale with fright. " The white
prisoners have all been carried away," he
gasped. Scarcely believing so amazing a
report, she hastened back to the governor,
who said he had just heard the news but was
loath to tell her.

Distractedly she ran into the street, seeking
to get a glimpse of the fugitives this way or
that. But they were nowhere in sight. She
darted down one street, then another, asking
every one she met, but no one would give
her an answer. At last an old woman de-
clared that the prisoners had gone toward
the little river on the way to Amarapoora.
Mrs. Judson ran half a mile to the river
bank, but no trace of the foreigners. Some
friendly persons hurried to the place of ex-
ecution, but lo, they were not there! Again
she resorted to the governor for help, but
he could only promise to dispatch a servant
to discover their fate. " You can do nothing
more for your husband," he said with slow
emphasis, " take care of yourself." With

[193]

Ann of Ava

the governor's warning ringing in her ears
she looked across to the desolate prison whose
silent walls gave no answer to her restless
question, Where, where ,are the foreign
prisoners?

[194]

XIV

PRISONERS IN A HEATHEN
VILLAGE

A BURMESE cart is at best a bungling
LjL contrivance for speed or comfort.
^ JL Its wheels are simply round pieces
of timber with holes in the center, through
wliich a pole is passed to support the body
of the conveyance. Springs and cushions
are luxuries unknown. Through the sand
and gravel of the hot season, and the fathom-
less mud of the rainy season, the cart lurches
and plimges at the uneven tread of the oxen.
One day in May, 1825, a cart of the usual
variety bumped and thumped with the usual
violence along the hot, dusty highway leading
from Ava to Amarapoora. Under its shabby
cover sat a motley group of travelers, — two
little Burmese girls, a Bengali sei'vant, and
an American woman with a baby in her arms.
From Ava, in the early morning, the little
party had set forth, conveyed for a few
miles in a covered boat on the " little river,"

[195]

Ann of Ava

and then transferred to the stuffy, jolting
cart for the remaining two miles.

At Amarapoora, their expected destina-
tion, a disappointment fell upon the band of
travelers. The object of their journey was
not yet attained, for lo, the prisoners who had
yesterday been removed by stealth from the
death prison at Ava, were not to be found
at Amarapoora. Only two hours before they
had been sent on their way to a village four
miles beyond.

Mrs. Judson, the leader of this little search
party, or relief expedition, gave orders to
proceed, but their cartman stolidly refused
to go further. Under the scorching sun of
midday she bartered and cajoled for an hour,
until another cartman agreed to convey them
to Aungbinle, the miserable goal of their
journey. Throughout that day of travel
Mrs. Judson held the baby Maria in her arms
with no relaxation of tired muscles and
nerves.

In the late afternoon, the village of Aung-
binle was reached and the prison, the central
place of interest, sought with haste. It was
an old, tumble-down building in the last
[196]

Ann of Ava

stages of dilapidation. Some workmen were
on the top trying to manufacture a roof of
leaves. While their abode was thus being
prepared, the prisoners huddled together
under a low projection outside, chained two
and two and nearly dead with the immense
discomfort of the journey.

There Mrs. Judson found her husband, a
ghost of his former self, even his prison self.
He gathered strength to say, " Why have
you come? I hoped you would not follow,
for you cannot live here."

Darkness was falling and Mrs. Judson
had no shelter for the night. Might she put
up a little bamboo house near the prison, she
asked the jailer? "No," he answered, "it
is not customary." Would he then find her
a place where she might spend the night? He
led her to his own house, which consisted of
two small rooms one of which he placed at
her disposal. It was a poor little place, half
filled with grain and accumulated dirt, yet
it harbored Mrs. Judson and her children
not for one night only but for a long succes-
sion of nights and days. Some half-boiled
water stayed her thirst and hunger that first

[197]

Ann of Ava

night, when upon a mat spread over the
grain she and her baby dropped in utter
exhaustion.

In the morning she listened to the mourn-
ful tale her husband had to tell of the march
of the prisoners from Ava to Aungbinle.
Scarcely had she left the prison yard at
Ava two days ago — so the story ran — when
a jailer rushed in, seized JMr. Judson by the
arm, stripped off his clothing, except shirt
and pantaloons, tore off his fetters, tied a
rope around his waist and dragged him to
the court-house, where he found the other for-
eign prisoners already assembled in a discon-
solate group. As soon as he arrived they
were tied together two by two and the ropes
given like reins into the hands of slaves who
were to be their drivers. The lainine-woon,
the officer in charge, mounted his horse and
gave orders for the procession to start.

It was then eleven o'clock in the day, in
the month of May, one of the hottest months
of the year. Hats and shoes had been seized
by the jailers, so there was no protection
from the direct rays of the sim above or the
sun-baked earth beneath. They had pro-
[198]

A Burmese Cart

Ann of Ava

ceeded about half a mile when JMr. Judson's
feet became blistered and his fevered body
so exhausted that, as they crossed the " little
river," he would gladly have thrown himself
into its cool waters and escaped his misery
forever. But quickly he dispelled the thought
as cowardice unworthy a Christian man.
They had still eight jniles to travel!

Before long the prisoners' bare feet became
entirely destitute of skin. Every step was
like treading upon burning coals, yet their
brutal keepers goaded them on without
merc3^ When about half way they stopped
for water and JNIr. Judson piteously begged
the lamine-woon to allow him to ride his
horse a mile or two as it seemed as if he
could not take another step. A scathing,
contemptuous look was the only reply he
received. He then asked Captain Laird, with
w^hom he was tied, and who was a robust
man, if he might lean upon his shoulder as
he walked. Captain Laird consented, and so
long as his strength lasted, supported his
fellow traveler as thej^ toiled along together.
Just as the limit of endurance was reached,
a Bengali servant of Mr. Gouger's joined

[199]

Ann of Ava

the ranks, and perceiving ]\Ir. Judson's
agony, tore off his Indian head-dress made
of cloth and gave half to his master and half
to Mr. Judson. It was the work of a few
seconds to wrap the cloth around the bruised
feet and resume the march which must not
be halted for sick or wounded prisoners.
The Bengali then walked by Mr. Judson's
side and almost carried him the rest of the
way. Had it not been for his timely help
Mr. Judson would probably have met the
fate of their Greek fellow-prisoner who fell
by the way, was beaten and dragged until
his drivers were themselves weary, then car-
ried in a cart to Amarapoora, where he died
an hour after his arrival.

At Amarapoora the lamine-woon reluc-
tantly decided to encamp for the night, realiz-
ing that his prisoners would perish on the
way if forced to go on to Aungbinle that
day. An old shed was secured for their rest-
ing-place, but what mockery was it of the
word when none of the necessities of the
night were provided to ease their dreadful
fatigue! Moved by feminine curiosity the
wife of the lamine-woon came to look upon
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Ann of Ava

the foreign prisoners, and something more
than curiosity stirred within her at the sight.
She went away and ordered fruit, sugar, and
tamarinds for their supper, and rice for their
breakfast, which was the only food supply
granted the famished men on their journey.

In the morning no member of the battered
regiment was able to walk, and carts were
furnished for their transfer to Aungbinle.
As they neared the journey's end, they spent
their small residue of strength surmising the
fate which was to befall them. Upon sight
of the dilapidated prison they concluded with
one accord that they were to be burned to
death, just as the rumor circulated at Ava
had predicted. They were endeavoring to
fortify their souls for this awful doom when
a band of workmen appeared and began re-
pairing the prison. It was about this time
that Mrs. Judson came to the end of her
toilsome journey in the prison yard at
Aungbinle.

Life in this uncivilized inland village
marked a new stage in the suffering career
of Mrs. Judson. It was now a fight for
mere existence, for the bare necessities which

[2011

Ann of Ava

hold body and soul together. The village
boasted no market for food supplies and
scarcely a roof to cover the homeless stranger.
With her husband chained in the prison, her
three-months-old baby dependent upon her
for the very breath of life, two Burmese
children clamoring for food and raiment, and
a forlorn little heathen village as a back-
ground. Problem would hardly spell Mrs.
Judson's predicament.

The first of the new series of tragic ad-
ventures befell the Judson family the next
day after their arrival in Aungbinle. Small-
pox entered their household and fastened
itself upon Mary Hasseltine, one of the Bur-
mese girls whom they had adopted. Child
though she was, Mary had been ]Mrs. Jud-
son's only helper in the care of the baby
Maria. Now the overtaxed mother must
divide her time between the sick child at home
and the sick husband in prison, who was still
suffering from fever and his sorely-mangled
feet. From da^vn to dark Mrs. Judson went
from the house to the prison, from the prison
to the house, back and forth, the baby borne
always in her arms. Though she contracted
[202]

Ann of Ava

a mild form of smallpox herself, she still
continued her round of ministrations, serving
not only her own family, but the entire com-
munity as well, since every child, young and
old, who had never had smallpox was brought
to her for vaccination I She had experi-
mented upon the jailer's children with such
success that her fame spread through the
village. The foreign lady evidently pos-
sessed some charm whereby to ward off or
lighten disease.

Gradually her patients recovered and the
prisoners were established in more comfort-
able condition than in the death prison at
Ava, being bound with one pair of fetters
in lieu of three and five. But for Mrs. Jud-
son the limit of physical endurance was
reached. She had spent her strength for
others' needs until there was none left to
her credit and a miserable tropical disease
took possession of her worn body. She be-
came so weak that she could barely crawl to
the prison. Yet in this pitiable condition
she set forth in a Burmese cart to go to Ava
in quest of medicines and food. Upon reach-
ing the deserted house on the river bank she

[203]

Ann of Ava

was stricken with such a desperate attack that
death seemed the only possible outcome, and
to die near her husband's prison in Aung-
binle, the one remaining desire in life. By
taking small doses of laudanum at intervals
she succeeded in quelling the disease to such
an extent, that though unable to stand, she
made the return journey by boat on the river
and by cart through the mud to Aungbinle.

In sickness, home becomes the one charmed
spot on earth, but what a home-coming was
this! The end of the journey measured the
end of endurance. The last vestige of
strength vanished and her tremendous power
of will was overthro^vn by the violence of the
disease. The Bengali cook, who had been
left in charge, came out to help his mistress,
but at sight of her he burst into tears, so
changed and emaciated had she become in
the few days' absence. She stumbled into
the little crowded room and dropped upon
the mat, where she lay for two months, help-
less with pain and weakness.

During Mrs. Judson's sickness the Ben-
gali cook came valiantly to the rescue of the
afflicted family. Day after day he provided
[204]

Ann of Ava

and cooked the food, sometimes walking long
distances for fuel and water, oftentimes de-
laying his o^vn meal until night-time that his
patients' needs might be first supplied. He
forgot caste and wages in his anxiety to
serve the foreigners whom he loved. To this
Hindu servant the Judson family owed the
preservation of their lives during those weeks
of dire want and misery.

Upon the youngest of their number fell
the sharp edge of their misfortunes. Be-
cause of her mother's sickness the baby
JNIaria was deprived of her natural food
supply and no milk could be obtained in
the village. Night after night the sick
mother was compelled to listen to the wails
of her child who was crying for food, and
there was none to give! By sending presents
to the jailers Mrs. Judson won permission
for her husband to carry the baby through
the village begging a few drops of nourish-
ment from those Burmese mothers who had
young children. Afterwards, in narrating
her experiences to the home people in
America, Mrs. Judson wrote : " I now began
to think the very afflictions of Job had come

[205]

Ann of Ava

upon me. When in health, I could bear the
various trials and vicissitudes through which
I was called to pass. But to be confined
with sickness and unable to assist those who
were so dear to me, when in distress, was
almost too much for me to bear, and had it
not been for the consolations of religion, and
an assured conviction that every additional
trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy,
I must have sunk under my accumulated
sufferings."

To the stricken band of prisoners there
came one day a faint gleam of hope. The
pakan-woon had been convicted of high
treason to the empire and promptly executed.
Now this pakan-woon was the Burmese offi-
cer who boldly aspired to take Bandoola's
place after his defeat and death. He made
fair promises of large pay to the soldiers and
guaranties of victory over the British army,
so that the king was dazzled by his easy-
going assurance and committed all power
into his hands. He was the bitter enemy of
foreigners and it was during his high-handed
reign that the foreign prisoners were removed
from Ava to Aungbinle. They now learned
[206]

Ann of Ava

for a certainty that he had sent them to the
remote village for the express purpose of
slaughtering them there, and of coming
himself to witness the gruesome spectacle.
Frequently the news had spread through the
prison of his expected arrival, but for what
devilish intent no one had suspected. His
death brought extension of life and hope to
the war captives at Aungbinle.

It was not until six months had been lived
out in the country prison and its environs
that hope of escape definitely entered the
Judson household. One day in November,
1825, a courier came to their door bearing a
message from Mrs. Judson's loyal friend,
the governor, in Ava. Last night, so the
letter read, an edict was issued in the royal
palace for Mr. Judson's release from prison.
The news was corroborated later in the day
by an official order repealing the prison sen-
tence. With a joyful heart Mrs. Judson
made preparations for departure in the early
morning, when, lo, her plans were frustrated
by the dastardly conduct of the jailers, who
insisted that Mrs. Judson's name was not
mentioned in the official document, therefore

[207]

Ann of Ava

they could not permit her to leave the place.
" But I was not sent here as a prisoner,"
she protested, " you have no authority over
me." But no, she could not go, and the
villagers should not be allowed to provide a
cart for her conveyance. At this juncture
Mr. Judson was removed from the prison
to the jailer's house, where, by threats and
persuasions added to gifts of provisions,
they agreed to let Mrs. Judson depart with
her husband.

It was noon the next day when the Judson
family, accompanied by an official guard, left
Aungbinle to return to Ava. At Amara-
poora on the way Mr. Judson was detained
for examination, and forwarded thence to the
court-house at Ava. With her little body-
guard of children Mrs. Judson pursued her
own course and reached the house on the
river bank at dusk.

In the morning she went in search of her
husband and to her dismay found him again
in prison, though not the death prison. She
hastened to her old friend, the governor, and
besought an explanation. He informed her
that Mr. Judson had been appointed inter-
[208]

Ann of Ava

preter for the Burman army in its negotia-
tions with the British and that he was to
go straightway to the army camp at JNlaloun.

Accordingly, on the morrow Mrs. Judson
bade her husband farewell, while he em-
barked on the crude little river craft for the
passage to Maloun. Upon arrival at camp,
he was compelled to enter at once upon his
task as interpreter, without so much as an
hour to recuperate his lost energy. His stay
in camp lasted six weeks and entailed suffer-
ings equal to his prison experience, with the
difference that chains were subtracted and
hard work added.

JSIeantime ISIrs. Judson drew a breath of
relief, supposing that the value of her hus-
band's services as interpreter would insure
him kind treatment in the Burmese camp.
Ignorance of liis actual situation was a mercy,
for there was no room in her life at this time
for the added burden of anxiety. Day by
day her power of resistance grew less until
she fell prey to that horrible disease, spotted
fever. On the very day when she first
recognized its fatal symptoms, a Burmese
woman came to the door and volunteered her

[209]

Ann of Ava

services as nurse for ^laria. This incident
was a direct expression of God's watchful
care, because repeatedly she had sought to
find a nurse for the baby and failed. Now
in her exigency the help came without solici-
tation.

Once given entrance, the fever ran its
course with violence. At the outset Mrs.
Judson measured her weakness against its
virulence and concluded it must be a losing
fight. As the disease developed she tried
to think how she could provide for little
Maria in the event of her death and decided
to commit her to the care of a Portuguese
woman. As her mind was grappling with
this painful question, reason failed, and trials
and tribulations were swept into a whirl of
delirium.

At this crucial moment Dr. Price was re-
leased from prison and hastened to her bed-
side. Had the doctor's coming been delayed
a few hours she would probably have passed
beyond human aid. In fact, the Burmese
neighbors, in their childish curiosity, had al-
ready crowded into the house to look with
wondering eyes upon the solemn spectacle
[210]

Ann of Avxi

of death. " She is dead," they said in awe-
stricken tones, " and if the king of angels
should come in he could not save her."

Yet Dr. Price bent all his energies to the
task of restoring the life which was being
given in vicarious sacrifice for the Burmese
people, though they knew it not. Vigorous
measures were prescribed; her head was
shaved and blisters applied to head and feet;
the Bengali servant was ordered to press
upon her the nourishment she had refused
for days. As consciousness gradually re-
turned, after days of delirium, her first real-
ization was of this faithful servant standing
by her bedside urging her to take a little
wine and water.

By microscopic degrees, health, or its
semblance, came again to the life shattered
by anxiety, privation, and disease. One day
during the slow convalescence, while she was
still too weak to stand upon her feet, a mes-
sage was brought to the sick room which left
a panic of joy and fear in its train. Mr.
Judson had been sent back to Ava and was
under detention at the court-house. What was
to be his fate the messenger could not say I

[211]

Ann of Ava

During the night Mr. Judson had entered
the city and had traversed the very street
which passed his own door! A feeble little
light glimmered within telling him the house
was not unoccupied. But what unknown and
fearful events might have taken place in
those six weeks of absence! Oh, for one look
behind that closed door! He begged, bribed,
cajoled, and threatened the jailers who con-
stituted his guard, but to no avail. They
pleaded the official command to deliver their
prisoner without delay at the court-house,
which command they dared not disobey.
Consequently, Mr. Judson finished the night
in an outbuilding near the court-house, specu-
lating anxiously as to his probable fate. On
the river journey to Maloun he had chanced
to see the official communication which ac-
companied him to Ava, " We have no further
use for Yoodthan," the message read, *' we
therefore return him to the golden city."
What new task would the " golden city " ex-
act of its foreign captive before the price of
liberty should be fully paid?

On the morrow Mr. Judson was summoned
before the court session and hurriedly ex-
[212]

Ann of Ava

amined. Not one of his acquaintances was
present at court that morning to identify him
and explain the curt message forwarded from
Maloun. " From what place was he sent to
Maloun?" inquired the presiding officer.
" From Aungbinle," was the reply. *' Let
him then be returned thither," was the care-
less verdict. The case was thus summarily
disposed of, and the plaintiff dispatched to
an out-of-the-way shed, serving as temporary
prison, to await removal to Aungbinle. In
these obscure quarters he spent a restless,
tantalizing day. Here he was in the same
city with his wife and child, separated only
by a few minutes' distance, yet powerless to
go to them or to hear one word of intelli-
gence concerning them. Tantalus, parched
with thirst and standing forever in the water
he could not reach, was in no worse predica-
ment.

Toward night ^loung Ing came to his re-
lief, having searched in vain for him through-
out the day. At intervals this faithful Bur-
mese had returned to the house to report his
fruitless quest to the waiting wife. For her,
too, the day had been almost insupportable.

[213]

Ann of Ava

The " last straw " had been Moung Ing's dis-
covery that her husband was ordered back to
Aungbinle. She could scarcely breathe after
the shock of these tidings. If ever in her life
Mrs. Judson felt the potency of prayer it
was on that dreadful day. " I could not rise
from my couch," she afterwards wrote, " I
could make no efforts to secure my husband;
I could only plead with that great and pow-
erful Being who has said, ' Call upon me in
the day of trouble, and I will hear, and thou
shalt glorify me,' and who made me at this
time feel so powerfully this promise that I
became quite composed, feeling assured that
my prayers would be answered."

It was in this desperate situation that Mrs.
Judson resolved to appeal once again to the
governor, who had so many times befriended
them. " Entreat him," she instructed Moung
Ing, " to make one more effort for the release
of Mr. Judson, and to prevent his being sent
to the country prison," where, she thought
wistfully, " I cannot follow and he must
needs suffer much."

For the last time the friendly governor
came to the relief of the foreign lady who
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Ann of Ava

had so fully captured his homage. He sent
a petition to the high court of the empire,
offered himself as security for Mr. Judson
and won his release. Early the next morn-
ing Mr. Judson was summoned to the gov-
ernor's house, there to receive the prize that
is beyond rubies, his freedom. With a step
more rapid, a heart more hopeful, than for
two years past, he hurried through the streets
of Ava to his own home.

The door of his house stood open as he
approached, and, unobserved by any one, he
entered. There, crouching in the ashes be-
fore a pan of coals sat a grimy, half-clothed
Burmese woman, holding in her arms a puny,
puny baby so covered with dirt that never
for a moment did Mr. Judson dream it could
be his own child. He crossed the threshold
into the next room, where, lying across the
foot of the bed, as if she had fallen there,
was the figure of a woman. Her face was
white, her features drawn and sharp, and
her whole form shrunken and emaciated.
Her brown curls had been cut off and an old
cotton cap covered her head. Everything in
the room spoke of neglect and ignorance in

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Ann of Ava

keeping with the face of the Burmese nurse
who held the baby before the fire. In these
squalid surroundings lay the beautiful, high-
spirited woman who for fourteen years had
never once " counted her life dear unto her-
self " if only she might follow the companion
of her heart in his high path of service for
God and man. " In journeyings often, in
perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness,
in perils in the sea, in perils among false
brethren; in labor and travail, in watchings
often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often,
in cold and nakedness; besides those things
that are without " — daily anxiety for the little
struggling Burmese church, — thus ran the
course of their Christlike sacrifice.

It may have been a tear which glanced her
cheek, or a breath which came too near, or
the sense of a dear, familiar presence more
palpable than touch, for Ann Judson stirred
uneasily in her sleep and opened her brown
eyes — to look into her husband's face.

[216]

XV

THE BRITISH CAMP

UNDER the tropical moonlight which
cast a shimmer of gold upon the
dark waters of the Irawadi, a
wounded British officer kept lonel/ vigil.
He had been traitorously attacked by the
Burmese boatmen who manned his canoe,
robbed of his possessions, sorely injured in
the fray, and abandoned to his fate upon the
deserted shore. For long, restless hours he
watched for the passage of a friendly craft
up or down stream.

As moonlight faded into daylight, a large
rowboat, escorted by half a dozen golden
boats, was seen approaching from the direc-
tion of Ava. The wounded man waved a
signal of distress, which was instantly heeded
by the passing flotilla. A skiff was sent
skimming over the water to his rescue, and
as if by magic he found himself on the deck
of a commodious rowboat, where the welcome
accorded him was more wondrous than ma-
gician's art. Had thoughts of home woven

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Ann of Ava

a spell about his senses, or was he in solid
reality looking into the face of a woman of
his own race, the first white woman he had
seen for more than a year in his military
exile in Burma? She stood on the little deck
leaning upon the arm of a worn, scholarly-
looking man, evidently her husband. She
herself was almost unearthly in her ethereal
beauty, while her gentle speech fell upon his
ear like " a household hymn of his youth."
His wounds were dressed and his head band-
aged by a hand which had caught the art of
deft and tender touch.

For two days, as the phalanx of boats
glided slowly down the river toward the
British camp, the wounded lieutenant dis-
coursed with his new friends, reveling in the
sense of home their companionship afforded
him. In the daytime warmth and the cool
of moonlight evenings they sat on deck re-
counting experiences, novel, thrilling, and sad,
which had been lived out in the heathen land
of their exile. Mrs. Judson, for she it was,
sat in a large, swinging chair, in which her
slight, graceful form seemed like a spirit
scarcely touching this material world. At
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Ann of Ava

her feet lay the baby Maria, a poor little
delicate baby, whose very frailty drew out the
mother's fondest love. At her side sat her
husband, watching with tender solicitude the
play of her sensitive face as she talked. The
British lieutenant, man of action that he was,
listened spellbound to the vivid charm of her
speech, made doubly eloquent in the presence
of the tragic experiences of the last two
years, revealing at once her sweetness of
spirit and the alert vigor of her mind.

As the time came to part with the two
people who had touched his life so briefly
yet so indelibly, the army officer lingered
wistfully, reluctant to pass out of their
presence. As he looked for the last time
into Mrs. Judson's face, while she was giving
directions in Burmese to his new boatmen,
tears gathered in his eyes, for with prophetic
insight the British lieutenant foresaw that so
delicate a spirit could not long remain in
this human world.

For Mr. and Mrs. Judson the trip down
the Irawadi in that month of March, 1826,
was like a foretaste of heaven. Many years
after the events recorded in these chapters,

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Ann of Ava

Adoniram Judson was in the midst of a
group of people who were discussing a
mooted question. What was the keenest
pleasure ever experienced by mortal man
since the world began? Some cited one in-
stance, some another, revealing what men of
different ages had regarded as supreme en-
joyment, when Mr. Judson interposed.
** Pooh," said he, " these men were not quali-
fied to judge. I know of a much higher
pleasure than that. What do you think of
floating down the Irawadi on a cool, moon-
light evening, with your wife by your side,
and your baby in your arms, jree — all free?
But you cannot understand it, either ; it needs
a twenty-one months' qualification, and I can
never regret my twenty-one months of misery,
when I recall that one delicious thrill. I
think I have had a better appreciation of
what heaven may be ever since."

Escape from Ava had been purchased on
no easy terms for either foreigner or Bur-
mans. In its childish egotism, the Burmese
government had persistently declined all
overtures for peace, imagining, like Mr.
Micawber, that something would " turn up "
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Ann of Ava

to enable them to drive the British army out
of the country. But now that foreign army
was actually advancing toward the capital
city itself, and consternation was rife. Two
foreigners, Dr. Price and an English officer,
were dispatched to the British camp to sue
for peace, while within the nation's capital,
panic-stricken citizens built stockades and
fortifications with furious energy. The house
on the river bank where the Judsons once
lived was torn down and the ground leveled
for the placing of cannon.

Meantime the embassage returned and an-
nounced the treaty terms stipulated by Sir
Archibald Campbell, commander-in-chief of
the British army. The Burmese government
must pay the sum of ten million rupees, and
must instantly surrender all foreign prison-
ers. The Judson family was specified by
name in this latter order, upon hearing which
the king exclaimed, " They are not English;
they are my people, and shall not go." For
the past three months Mr. Judson's services
as interpreter and counselor had become so
indispensable to the Burmese government
that consent to his departure would be re-

Ann of Ava

luctantly yielded. At that time both Mr.
Judson and his wife were fully convinced that
they would never be permitted to leave Ava.

As soon as peace terms were proclaimed
in the royal palace, the Burmese officials be-
gan to haggle and shuffle, thinking that some-
how the demands might be evaded, at the
same time accusing the foreigners of double-
dealing for not securing milder terms. Again
and again they procrastinated, thinking, in
their ignorance of military principles, that
even though the money should be paid the
British army would still continue its march
upon Ava. At last Sir Archibald Campbell
issued an ultimatum: if the sum demanded
should be paid before he reached Ava, peace
would be concluded, if not, then war to the
finish I All foreign prisoners who chose to
leave Ava must be released at once else peace
would be forfeited. Some Burmese officials
remarked to Mr. Judson, " You will not
leave us; you shall become a great man if
you will remain." Adroitly he replied that
his wife wished to go, therefore he must
follow.

At last the indemnity was paid, the prison-
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Ann of Ava

ers released from Aimgbinle and sent either
to their homes, or down the river to the Brit-
ish camp, and — war tvas over! On the banks
of the river Mr. and Mrs. Judson bade af-
fectionate farewell to the friendly governor
at whose house they had spent the last two
months, and left, as they supposed forever,
the " golden city " of Ava. Then came that
blissful journey do^vn the Irawadi, the com-
radeship with the British officer whose lot
was cast with theirs fpr so brief a time, and
finally, the first sure token of civilized life —
the outlines of an English steamboat!

As their Burmese rowboat grated on the
shore, two British officers sprang on board
to extend a welcome and to proffer the hos-
pitality of the anchored steamer. There,
Mrs. Judson spent the remainder of the day,
while her husband went to the camp, a few
miles down stream. In the evening he re-
turned with an invitation from the British
general to come at once to his quarters.

The reception of a lady is always an event
in army life, and she who was heralded as the
heroine of Ava was to be the heroine also
of the British soldiers. Unusual military

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Ann of Ava

honors were prepared for her welcome in
camp. As a mark of especial attention, Sir
Archibald Campbell sent his own son to
escort her from the steamer. Upon her ar-
rival he himself stood on the shore to greet
his guest and to conduct her to a tent more
commodious than his own, boasting the un-
common luxury of a veranda. Through all
his official courtesy ran the strain of a gen-
uine fatherly kindness which would never be
forgotten by its recipients. The officers of
his staff vied with one another in doing honor
to their lady visitor whose gentle heroism im-
pelled their deepest gallantry. Their cour-
teous bearing contrasted as sharply with the
gruff demeanor of the Burmese officers as
civilization contrasts with heathendom.

" I presume to say," wrote Ann Judson in
a home letter, *' that no persons on earth
were ever happier than we were during the
fortnight we passed at the British camp.
For several days this single idea wholly
occupied my mind — that we were out of the
power of the Burmese government, and once
more under the protection of the British.
Our feelings continually dictated expressions
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Ann of Ava

like this : ' What shall we render to the Lord
for all his benefits toward us? ' "

An incident, half humorous, half pathetic,
occurred a few days after the Judsons' ar-
rival at camp. General Campbell proposed
to give a dinner to the Burmese commis-
sioners, and to make it an affair of pomp and
magnificence fully expressing his nation's dig-
nity. As if by an enchanted wand the camp
was transformed into a wonderland of fes-
tivity, with floating banners and crimson and
gold garnishings such as particularly delight
Oriental fancy. At the appointed hour the
company assembled and, while the band
played, marched in couples toward the table,
led by Sir Archibald Campbell, who walked
in solitary state. As the procession neared
the tent with the veranda the music ceased,
the grand march halted, and every guest,
especially the Eurmese to whom this scene
was novelty personified, watched intently for
the next act in the spectacle.

The general entered the tent and presently
reappeared with a lady on his arm whom he
led to the table and seated at his right hand.
That was the psychologic moment when the

[225]

Ann of Ava

Burmese commissioners wished devoutly that
the ground would open and swallow them,
for that lady, honored above all others by the
leading personage in the Burmese empire at
that time, the general who had them com-
pletely at his mercy, that lady could place
a black mark of condemnation against every
Burmese official present, save one whose
record was clean. She was the teacher's wife
whom they had treated with incivility and
cruelty in the day of her misfortune. Judg-
ing by Burmese standards of ethics, their day
of reckoning had come, for she would of
course retaliate and demand their punish-
ment. They and their wives would seek
revenge were the circumstances reversed.
" Oif with their heads " would be the military
command next in order. Little they knew
Mrs. Judson or the Christianity which in-
spired her life!

A glance around the table revealed to her
the discomfiture of the Burmese guests. One
poor man was suffering palpable remorse for
his misdeeds. Perspiration covered his face,
which was white and distorted with fear,
while he trembled as if seized with an ague
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Ann of Ava

fit. There was sufficient reason for his qualms
of conscience, for he was the culprit who
had brutally scoffed at the misery he might
have relieved.

One day Mrs. Judson had walked several
miles to his house, to beseech a favor for her
husband, who was bound with five pairs of
fetters in the inner prison, and suffering from
fever. It was early morning when she had
left home, but so long was she kept waiting
for an audience, that it was high noon when
she presented her petition, only to receive a
gruff refusal. As she turned to go, he caught
sight of the silk umbrella she carried, and
since it pleased his fancy he must needs
possess it for his own. In vain she pleaded
the danger of walking the long distance with
no protection from the scorching midday sun.
If he must have her parasol would he not
furnish her with a paper one to shield her
from the heat? Whereupon he laughed a
sneering laugh, and replied that only stout
people were in danger of sunstroke, the sun
could not find such as she, thus mocking the
very suffering which had wasted her to a
shadow,

[«27]

Ann of Ava

Mrs. Judson could almost smile now in
recollection of the incident, especially at sight
of the poor man's dismay, which pity bade
her relieve. In her clear Burmese she spoke
a few encouraging words to him, assuring him
he had nothing whatsoever to fear. The
British officers who had sensed the situation
joined her in efforts to set him at ease, but
with small success. Throughout the feast he
was possessed by a fear he could not conceal.
So much for the difference between Christian
and heathen standards of conduct!

All too soon the time of departure drew
nigh, when the Judsons must leave the
friendly environment of the British camp,
and embark on the river journey to their old
home in Rangoon. General Campbell ar-
ranged for their passage to the coast on a
British gunboat, in which conveyance, more
novel to the missionaries than Burmese row-
boat or Burmese cart, they returned to the
city where, thirteen years ago, they began life
as pioneers in the heathen land of Burma.
What had befallen the little church they had
founded in labor and sorrow? Would they
find it broken and scattered, or upstanding
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Ann of Ava

and stalwart? Had the eighteen Christian
disciples remained loj^al to their God through
all the turmoil and affliction? A few hours
would tell, for already they were in sight of
the golden pagoda, the crowning landmark of
Rangoon.

[2«9]

XVI
THE HOPIA TREE

AFTER thirteen years of residence in
/% Burma, Mr. and Mrs. Judson found
^ .A. themselves as homeless on their re-
turn to Rangoon in 1826 as upon that July
day when they first landed in the forbidding
country. The mission house had survived
the ravage of war, but the mission itself had
broken ranks and dispersed. The mission-
aries had narrowly escaped death and had
fled to Calcutta to wait for the close of the
war. The Burmese Christians, eighteen in
number, had scattered in alarm, though none
but two had failed in loyalty to the holy faith
they professed. Four of them hastened to
Rangoon to welcome the Judsons, whose fate
had been so long a sealed mystery to the
world outside of Ava. In the loyalty of a
common devotion to Christ they promised to
follow the American teachers whithersoever
they should go to build anew the shattered
mission of Burma.

When Mr. and Mrs. Judson journeyed
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Ann of Ava

down the river from Ava to Rangoon they
carried with them a trophy of priceless value.
It was a little hard roll of paper which had
been rescued, seemingly by miracle, from the
death prison. To preserve the cherished pos-
session from destruction, Mrs. Judson had
artfully concealed it within the old pillow
used by her husband in prison. On that evil
day when he was robbed of clothes and be-
longings and marched away to Aungbinle,
a jailer seized the pillow, untied its covering,
and flung away in contempt the meaningless
roll he found inside. Some hours afterwards
the faithful Moung Ing discovered the cot-
ton-covered package and, prizing it as the
only relic of the vanished prisoners, took it
home and secreted it. Many months later
the hidden treasure was brought to light, and
inside the tattered covering was found the
unfinished manuscript of the Burmese Bible,
upon which Mr. Judson had spent ten years
of arduous labor. Surely it was God's hand
that had saved those precious pages from
destruction.

Eight years later the entire Bible was
translated into Burmese. It has been said

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Ann of Ava

that Mr. Judson's Bible is to the Burmese
people what Luther's is to the Germans,
and the King James version to English-
speaking races. To the varied adventures
of his missionary career, even in large meas-
ure to the tragic events at Ava, Mr. Judson
owed his unique opportunity for mastering
the intricacies of Burmese speech.

Ann and Adoniram Judson had been the
pioneers of a new civilization in the heathen
land of Burma, but, like most pioneers, the
consummation of their labor was left for
future generations to achieve and enjoy. As
they walked through the squalid streets of
Rangoon in March, 1826, the veil was not
lifted from the future years to disclose the
transformed structure which other workmen
would build upon their foundations. Since
they were the first American teachers to
arrive in Burma, they could scarcely discern,
out of their small beginnings of Christian
education, the great institution, known as
Rangoon Baptist College, which some day
would stand upon a broad, paved street in
the midst of the city, summoning to its class-
rooms more than one thousand students from
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Ann of Ava

all parts of the empire. With only the sim-
ple hand press brought from Serampore to
issue their modest publications, how could
they foresee the well-equipped printing es-
tablishment, known as the American Baptist
]\Iission Press, which in the coming years
would stand upon a thriving business street,
employing two hundred men and women to
print Bibles, school-books, and other litera-
ture in the dialects of the principal tribes of
Burma? When their little church could mus-
ter but three native members out of the deso-
lation of war, how could such a diminutive
band foreshadow the one hundred and fifty-
eight organized churches with a membership
of nearly ten thousand, which in the twen-
tieth century can be found within the boun-
daries of Rangoon?

These beautiful realities of the future to
be achieved not only in Rangoon but in the
chief cities and towns of Burma, were with-
held from the eager gaze of the first mission-
aries. Their task was to " walk by faith, not
by sight," and " blessed are they who have
not seen, and yet have believed." The hope
which inspired their pioneer labor, was not

[233]

Ann of Ava

unlike the Hope of Watts' picture, a baffled,
blindfolded figure upon the " top of the
world," drawing determined music from the
lyre of one string.

To remain at Rangoon at the close of the
war seemed a wholly imprudent course.
Anarchy, famine, and wild beasts followed
in quick succession. Tigers lurked in the
outskirts of the city, carrying off cattle and
human victims. JVIoreover the city was under
British control for only a temporary period,
pending the final ratification of peace terms,
after which the old despotic regime would be
resumed. Thanks to the war it was no longer
necessary to live under the Burmese govern-
ment in order to live among Burmese people.
Among the spoils of war Great Britain had
claimed a long strip of Burmese territory
bordering upon the seacoast. Already the
region was well populated with Burmans, and
refugees from the tyranny of Ava would
throng increasingly within the boundaries of
British justice. Somewhere within this bor-
derland of humane government, the mission-
aries would stake their claims for settlement.

As their thoughts were turning with the
[S34]

Ann of Ava

hardihood of the true pioneer toward the
frontier country, Mr. Judson was oppor-
tunely invited to join the British Civil Com-
missioner on an exploration tour in the new
province to determine the site of its capital
city. In the very heart of the jungle the
explorers decided to build the city of the
future because the climate was invigorating
and the elevation high and commanding.
With a prayer of dedication, the British flag
was hoisted, and the infant settlement named
Amherst, in honor of the Governor-general
of India.

On the second day of July, 1826, the Jud-
son family, preceded by the four Burmese
Christians, removed from Rangoon to. Am-
herst to create out of its wilderness a home
and a mission. Even before they left Ran-
goon an old and unwelcome question had
thrust in its claims for decision. The British
Civil Commissioner was to be sent as envoy
to Ava to negotiate a commercial treaty with
the Burmese government, and Mr. Judson
was urged to accompany him in the capacity
of British ambassador. At first he vigor-
ously demurred, having no relish for further

[235]

Ann of Ava

encounter with the tricky Burmese govern-
ment and no heart to leave home after his
long and painful absence. Perhaps as bait
for his acceptance, there was finally offered
him that golden opportunity which never yet
had he been able to resist. If he would join
the embassy, they would agree to work for
the insertion of a clause in the treaty, insur-
ing religious liberty to the subjects of Burma.
A vision of the whole country open to the
gospel of Christ broke down every scruple
against the journey. With all her heart Mrs.
Judson seconded the decision to go, regard-
less of the loneliness in store for herself and
Maria in their wilderness home.

In the little house at Amherst, vacated by
the British Civil Superintendent for their
occupancy, Mr. and Mrs. Judson prayed to-
gether and kissed each other good-by for the
separation which promised to be far less long
and hazardous than many they had experi-
enced in their adventurous lives. They had
been preserved through such extreme perils
and hardships that an absence of three or
four months, in circumstances of safety and
comfort, seemed a matter of trivial import.
[236]

Ann of Ava

In expectation of a speedy reunion, and a
home life sanctified by the sorrow of the
past, Mrs. Judson watched her husband de-
part out of the peace of the tropical forest
into the friction and discontent of the heathen
city of Ava.

After he had gone she went eagerly to
work, fashioning visible evidences of the mis-
sion they dreamed of establishing in the new
Burma. Within the passage of two months'
time, she had erected a bamboo house and
two schoolhouses, in one of which she col-
lected ten pupils for Moung Ing to instruct,
reserving the other for the girls' school she
planned to teach herself. Each Sunday she
held services for the small but loyal congre-
gation of Burmese Christians. " After all
our sufferings and afflictions," she wrote her
husband, " I cannot but hope that God has
mercy and a blessing in store for us. Let
us strive to obtain it by our prayers and
holy life."

When late September fell upon the unquiet
city of Ava, Mr. Judson received another
letter from his wife which rang with hopeful-
ness and brought a tinge of relief to his con-

[237]

Ann of Ava

stant solicitude for the little jungle home
he had left behind. " I have this day moved
into the new house," wrote INIrs. Judson,
" and for the first time since we were broken
up at Ava feel myself at home. The house
is large and convenient, and if you were here
I should feel quite happy. The native popu-
lation is increasing very fast, and things wear
a favorable aspect. Moung Ing's school has
commenced with ten scholars, and more are
expected. Poor little Maria is still feeble.
I sometimes hope she is getting better; then
again she declines to her former weakness.
When I ask her where papa is, she always
starts up and points toward the sea. The
servants behave very well and I have no trou-
ble about anything excepting you and Maria.
Pray take care of yourself, particularly as
regards the intermittent fever at Ava. May
God preserve and bless you, and restore you
in safety to your new and old home, is the
prayer of your affectionate Ann."

The solace of this message brought to ]SIr.
Judson no suggestion of the solemn, heart-
breaking reality which a few weeks would
disclose. No warning voice told him, as he
[288]

Ann of Ava

chafed at the long absence from home, that
away toward the coast in the frontier town
of Amherst, the wife who had ministered to
him with such matchless devotion, would soon
need his succor as she had never needed be-
fore and would never need again. How
could he know that the slip of paper he held
in his hand bore the last written word he
would ever receive from Ann, his dearly
loved Ann?

The annoying events of every day in the
too familiar environment of Ava kept mind
and heart busily occupied but perpetually
disquieted. Associations too painful to re-
call, yet too evident to escape, preyed daily
upon his senses. Again he was entangled
in the maze of stupidity and conceit which
comprised the government of Burma. And
again, alas, he was confounded by the flat
refusal of the king to grant religious freedom
to his subjects. What unholy spell was cast
upon the name of Ava to yield such a harvest
of galling experience!

Why had he come? The trip had proved
one long, unrelieved disappointment, yet at
its outset it had looked so promising, had

[239]

Ann of Ava

seemed to indicate so plainly the path of
duty. With torturing insistence he asked
that question on the day in November when
a black sealed letter was laid cautiously in
his hands. Upon sight of the envelope, bear-
ing its emblem of grief, he concluded that
frail little Maria had lost hold of life. With
thankfulness too deep for tears, that the
mother was spared, he went into his room,
broke the seal, and read the opening sentence
of a letter written by a British officer in
Amherst.

"My dear Sir: — To one who has suffered
so much, and with such exemplary fortitude,
there needs but little preface to tell a tale
of distress. It were cruel indeed to torture
you with doubt and suspense. To sum up
the unhappy tidings in a few words, Mrs,
Judson is no more. . . ." In broken snatches
he got through the dreadful letter, every
phrase of which was written, as if by fire,
upon his heart. Early in October she was
taken sick with fever so violent that from
the first a sure instinct told her she could
not recover. A skilful Enghsh physician
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The Hopia Tree

Ann of Ava

was in constant attendance, and through the
kindness of the Civil Superintendent, a
European nurse was procured from the
forty-fifth regiment. Everything which a
loving appreciation could prompt was done
for her comfort and healing, but to no avail.
For two weeks the fever rose and fell, in-
creased and abated, until when its course
was fully run, her strength was also com-
pletely spent. On the 6th of October, in
the dusk of evening, her spirit went home
to God. " We have buried her," so the letter
ran, " near the spot where she first landed,
and I have put up a small, rude fence around
the grave, to protect it from incautious in-
trusions. Your little girl, Maria, is much
better. Mrs. Wade has taken charge of her,
and I hope she will continue to thrive under
her care."

Some weeks later, a broken-hearted man
sat down in the desolate house at Amherst
and wrote to the mother of Ann, over in the
Hasseltine homestead in Bradford. This is
the story of those last days as his pen
recorded it:

[241]

Ann of Ava

"Amherst, February 4, 1827.

" Amid the desolation that death has made,
I take up my pen once more to address the
mother of my beloved Ann. I am sitting
in the house she built, in the room where she
breathed her last, and at a window from
which I see the hopia tree that stands at the
head of her grave, and the top of the * small,
rude fence ' which they have put up ' to pro-
tect it from incautious intrusion.'

" Mr. and Mrs. Wade are living in the
house, having arrived here about a month
after Ann's death; and Mrs. Wade has taken
charge of my poor motherless JNIaria. I was
unable to get any accounts of the child at
Rangoon; and it was only on my arriving
here, the 24th ultimo, that I learned she was
still alive. Mr. Wade met me at the landing-
place, and as I passed on to the house one
and another of the native Christians came
out, and when they saw me they began to
weep. At length we reached the house, and
I almost expected to see my love coming out
to meet me, as usual. But no; I saw only in
the arms of Mrs. Wade a poor little puny
child, who could not recognize her weeping
[242]

Ann of Ava

father, and from whose infant mind had long
been erased all recollection of the mother
who had loved her so much.

" She turned away from me in alarm, and
I, obliged to seek comfort elsewhere, found
my way to the grave. But who ever obtained
comfort there? Thence I went to the house
in which I left her, and looked at the spot
where we last knelt in prayer and where we
exchanged the parting kiss.

" It seems that her head was much af-
fected during her last days, and she said
but little. She sometimes complained thus:
* The teacher is long in coming; and the new
missionaries are long in coming; I must die
alone, and leave my little one; but as it
is the will of God, I acquiesce in his will.
I am not afraid of death, but I am
afraid I shall not be able to bear these
pains. Tell the teacher that the disease was
most violent, and I could not write; tell him
how I suffered and died; tell him all that you
see; and take care of the house and things
until he returns.' When she was unable to
notice anything else, she would still call the
child to her, and charge the nurse to be

[248]

Ann of Ava

kind to it, and indulge it in everything, un-
til its father should return. The last day or
two she lay almost senseless and motionless,
on one side, her head reclining on her arm,
her eyes closed; and at eight in the evening,
with one exclamation of distress in the Bur-
mese language, she ceased to breathe.

" The doctor is decidedly of opinion that
the fatal termination of the fever is not to
be ascribed to the localities of the new settle-
ment, but chiefly to the weakness of her con-
stitution, occasioned by the severe privations
and long-protracted sufferings she endured
at Ava. O, with what meekness, and pa-
tience, and magnanimity and Christian forti-
tude she bore those sufferings! And can I
wish they had been less? Can I sacri-
legiously wish to rob her crown of a single
gem? Much she saw and suffered of the
evil of this evil world, and eminently was she
qualified to relish and enjoy the pure and
holy rest into which she has entered. True,
she has been taken from a sphere in which
she was singularly qualified, by her natural
disposition, her winning manners, her devoted
zeal, and her perfect acquaintance with the
[244]

Ann of Ava

language, to be extensively serviceable to the
cause of Christ; true, she has been torn
from her husband's bleeding heart and from
her darling babe; but infinite wisdom and
love have presided, as ever, in this most
afflicting dispensation. Faith decides that it
is all right, and the decision of faith eternity
will soon confirm."

In the spring of that sad New Year, the
child Maria, aged two years and three
months, was laid by the side of her mother
under the hopia tree, which shaded their
graves with its fair name of hope. Hope,
sometimes blithesome and radiant, sometimes
downcast and suffering, but always hope un-
conquerable, had inspired the life of Ann
Hasseltine Judson from its beginning in the
hill village of New England to its close
in the jungle village of Burma. But lying
deeper than hope, deeper even than faith,
down in her heart of hearts was buried the
secret which had transformed her life, —
" Whom, not having seen, I love."

END

[245]

Hist of

iVItsisiton IBoarbs! anb

Corresponbentsi

INASMUCH as the publishing business of the Missionary Education Move-
ment is conducted in behalf of the Foreign and Home Mission Boards and
Societies of the United States and Canada, the Movement conducts no retail
business, but directs all orders to the Mission Boards.

Orders for Uterature on foreign and home missions should be addressed to the
secretaries representing those organizations, who are prepared to furnish special
helps to leaders of mission study classes and to other missionary workers.

lif the address of the secretary of the foreign or home mission board or society
of your denomination is not included herein, cJrders may be sent to the Missionary
Education Movement, but in no case will the Movement fill orders from persons
who belong to the Churches indicated in this list. All persons ordering directly
from the Missionary Education Movement Jire requested to indicate their denomi-
nation when ordering.

Advent Christian — American Advent Mission Society, Rev. George E. Tyler,
1 60 Warren Street, Boston, Mass.

Associate Reformed Presbyterian — Young People's Christian Union and Sab-
bath School Work, Rev. J. W. Carson, Newberry, S. C.

Baptist (North) — Department of Missionary Education of the Cooperating
Organizations of the Northern Baptist Convention. 23 Elast 26th Street,
New York City.

Baptist (South) — Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention,
Rev. T. B. Ray, 1103 Main Street, Richmond, Va. (Correspondence con-
cerning both foreign and home missions.)

Baptist (Ck>LORSD) — Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Conven-
tion, Rev. L. G. Jordan, 701 South Nineteenth Street, Philadelphia, Pa.

Christian — The Mission Board of the Christian Church; Foreign Missions, Rev.
M. T. Morrill; Home Missions, Rev. Omer S. Thomas, C. P. A. Building,
Dayton, Ohio.

Christian Reformed — Board of Heathen Missions, Rev, Henry Beets, 2050
Francis Avenue, S. E., Grand Rapids, Mich.

CntmcH OF THE Brethren — General Mission Board of the Church of the Breth'.
ren. Rev. Galen B. Royer, Elgin, Dl.

Congregational — American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Rev

D. Brewer Eddy, 14 Beacon Street. Boston, Mass.
American Missionary Association, Rev. C. J. Ryder, 287 Fourth Avenue, New

York City.
The (xmgregational Home Missionary Society, Rev. William S. Beard, 287

Fourth Avenue, New York City.

Disciples of Christ — Foreign Christian Missionary Society, Rev. Stephen J.
Corey, Box 884, Cincinnati, Ohio.
The American Christian Missionary Society, Mr. R. M. Hopkins, Carew Build-
iag, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Evangelical Association — Missionary Society of the Evangelical Association,
Rev. George Johnson, 1903 Woodland Avenue, S. E., Cleveland, Ohio.

Evangelical Lutheran — Board of Foreign Missions of the General Council of

the Evangelical Lutheran Church in N. A., Rev. George Drach, Trappe, Pa.
Board of Home Missions of the General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran

Church in North America, 805-807 Drexel Building, Philadelphia, Pa.
Board of Foreign Missions of the General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran

Church in the U. S. A., Rev. L. B. Wolf, 2i West Saratoga Street, Baltimore,

Md.
Board of Home Missions and Church Extension of the Evangelical Lutheran

Church. Rev. H. H. Weber, York, Pa.
Board of Foreign Missions of the United Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran

Church in the South, Rev. C. L. Brown, Columbia, S. C. ^

Friends — American Friends Board of Foreign Missions, Mr. Ross A. Hadley,
Richmond, Ind.
Evangelistic and Church Extension Board of the Friends Five Years' Meeting,
Mr. Harry R. Keates, 1314 Lyon Street, Des Moines, Iowa.

German Evangelical — Foreign Mission Board, German Evangelical Synod of
North America, Rev. E. Schmidt, 1377 Main Street, Buffalo, N. Y.
Board of Home Missions of the Germian Evangelical Synod of North Americai
Evansville, Ind.

Methodist Episcopal — The Department of Missionary Education. Represent-
ing the Board of Foreign Missions, the Board of Home Missions and Church
Extension, and the Board of Sunday Schools. 150 Fifth Avenue, New York
City.

Methodist Episcopal (South) — The Educational Department of the Board of
Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Rev. E. H. Rawlings,
810 Broadway, Nashville, Tenn. (Correspondence concerning both foreign
and home missions.)

Methodist Protestant — Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Protestant
Church, Rev. Fred. C. Klein, 316 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Md.
Board of Home Missions of the Methodist Protestant Church, Rev. Charles H.
Beck, West Lafayette, Ohio.

Moravian — The Department of Missionary Education of the Moravian Church
in America, Northern Province, Rev. F. W. Stengel, Lititz, Pa.

Presbyterian (U. S. A.) — The Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian

Church in the U. S. A., Mr. B. Carter Millikin, Educational Secretary; Rev.

George H. Trull, Sunday School Secretary, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., Mr. J.

Edward Tompkins, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

Presbyterian (U. S.) — Executive Committee of Foreign Missions of the Presby-
terian Church in the U. S., Mr. John I. Armstrong, 154 Fifth Avenue, North,
Nashville, Tenn.
General Assembly's Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S.
Rev. S. L. Morris, 1522 Hurt Building, Atlanta, Ga.

Protestant Episcopal — The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the U. S. A., Mr. W. C. Sturgis, 281 Fourth
Avenue, New York City.

Reformed Church in America — Board of Foreign Missions, Rev. E. W. Miller;
Board of Home Missions, Rev. W. T. Demarest; Board of Publication and
Bible School Work, Rev. T. F. Bayles. 25 East Twenty-second Street, New
York City.

Reformed Church in the United States — Mission Study Department. Rep-
resenting the Boards of Home and Foreign| Missions, Mr. John H. Poor-
man, 304 Reformed Church Building, Fifteenth and Race Streets, Philadel-
phia, Pa.

United Brethren in Christ — Foreign Missionary Society, Rev. S. S. Hough,

Otterbein Press Building, Dayton, Ohio.
Home Missionary Society, Miss Lyda B. Wiggim, United Brethren Building,

Dayton, Ohio.
Young People's Work, Rev. O. T. Deever, Otterbein Press Building, Dayton,

Ohio.

United Evangelical — Home and Foreign Missionary Society of the United
Evangelical Church and Board of Xhurch Extension, Rev. B. H. Niebel,
Penbrook, Pa.

United Norwegian Lutheran — Board of Foreign Missions United Norwegian
Lutheran Church of America, Rev. M. Saterlie, 425-429 South Fourth Street,
Minneapolis, Minn.
Board of Home Missions, United Norwegian Lutheran Church of America, Rev.
Olaf Gvildseth, 425 South Fourth Street, Minneapolis, Minn.

United Presbyterian — Mission Study Department of the Board of Foreign Mis-
sions of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, Rev. James K.
Quay, 200 North Fifteenth Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
Board of Home Missions of the United Presbyterian Church of North America,
Rev. R. A. Hutchison, 209 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Universalis r — Department of Missionary Education of the General Sunday
School Association of the Universalist Church, Rev. A. Gertrude Earle,
Methuen, Mass.

CANADIAN BOARDS

Baptist — The Canadian Baptist Foreign Mission Board, Rev. J. G. Brown, 223
Church Street, Toronto, Ontario.

Church of England — The Missionary Society of the Church of England in
Canada, Rev. Canon S. Gould, 131 Confederation Life Building, Toronto,
Ontario.

Congregational — Canada Congregational Foreign Missionary Society, Miss EfiSe
Jamieson, 23 Woodlawn Avenue, East, Toronto, Ontario.

Methodist — Young People's Forward Movement Department of the Missionary
Society of the Methodist Church,;.Canada, Rev. F. C. Stephenson, 299 Queen
Street, West, Toronto, Ontario.

Presbyterian — Presbyterian Church in Canada, Board of Foreign Missions, Rev.
A. E. Armstrong, 439 Confederation Life Building, Toronto, Ontario.

P\ REGlONA^ jSRARV FAClLil

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